Adam M On The Front Page

Oops

2011-12-30T08:42:00.003-08:00

We were hacked last night but are now running again.

Sarah Silverman Discusses Racism in the Republican Primary With Rachel Maddow

2011-10-31T11:41:00.001-07:00

See it here via The Huffington Post.

US Plans Post-Iraq Troop Buildup in Gulf After Exit From Iraq

2011-10-30T11:51:00.000-07:00

Read about here in the New York Times.

Ontario Leaders' Debate

2011-09-27T23:42:00.000-07:00

I wasn't going to watch the debate because I had to go to the grocery store and I was pretty sure I knew how it was going to turn out anyway, but I got sucked into it and was mildly surprised.

Dalton McGuinty wasn't as bad as I thought he would be.

Tim Hudak was a little better than I thought he would be.

Andrea Horwath I had no expectations of and she was alright.

One thing I hate that everyone is so into now is choosing one person and talking about their personal stories as though that anecdotal tale is somehow symbolic of everything. Yes, it's important to know these stories. Yes, it's important to meet with individuals and really think about what they're saying. Yes, it matters that you can care about individuals.

But in a political debate you're debating matters of broad policy. You're not crafting policies specifically for Jim that you met at the truck stop when you ran out of Doritos on the bus. You're crafting policies for everyone and you hope that they'll do right by Jim.

Does it impress me as a viewer of the debate that you spent the hour before it started sitting with your staff, memorizing peoples' names?

-"OK. Who used to have a manufacturing job but lost it because of the unfair HST?"

-"That was Bill!"

-"No! That was Krystal. We were looking for Krystal."

-"Now who couldn't get a job because they gave it to a foreigner?"

-"I know it! That was Leonard!"

-"No! That was Bill."

And they went on and on and on with those things all night.

I also don't appreciate the politicization of candidates' families, especially children. But what can you do?

There were a few good moments but my favourite was when Dalton McGuinty asked both of the other leaders why they used to be in favour of abolishing the HST but now neither of them are. There were some pretty awkward expressions on their faces then. Not that he took the opportunity to explain while people might actually be watching why the HST is supposed to make Ontario more competitive.

2011-09-27T19:40:00.001-07:00

More to Know About the Use of Government Jets

2011-09-23T13:44:00.000-07:00

We haven't seen the end of the story of questionable use of government jets.

According to CBC 60% of the planes' flights were taken by passengers not needing the extra security, as well as other interesting uses. Check out this laundry list: http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2011/09/22/challenger-use.html

In a separate story they report that Peter MacKay also used one of the government's jets to bring him to his home riding in order to participate in the serious government business of defending his title as champion lobster bander at a lobster festival.

Morgan Freeman Discusses The Tea Party and Racism With Piers Morgan

2011-09-23T13:31:00.000-07:00

In a conversation with Piers Morgan, Morgan Freeman discusses Obama, the Tea Party and racism.

See it here via The Huffintong Post.

Elizabeth Warren Speech

2011-09-21T18:59:00.000-07:00

You love Elizabeth Warren, right? Everyone does.

Check out this speech of hers via Moveon.org.

A Deal Is A Deal: BC Will Have to Repay Federal HST Money

2011-09-20T22:52:00.000-07:00

Jim Flaherty expects British Columbia to repay the $1.6 Billion it received from the federal government as part of its HST tax rollout.

Here's something I don't say very often: I agree with Jim Flaherty.

I don't understand the idea behind the HST 100% but to the extent that I know it has to do with business inputs and that this is good for manufacturing companies, my basic understanding is that it is necessary.

I recall when the GST came into effect that business inputs were an issue even then.

The way the HST issue was handled in BC bugged me because I don't like to see people going around making judgements and pronouncements about issues that they haven't looked into that closely (not understanding the HST all that much, I generally try to stay out of it... if I was going to join a protest group I think I would find out more about it, rather than just going on my gut instinct that I don't like a tax increase) but the reaction to the HST in BC and less so in Ontario (where it doesn't play much in the media but there's lots of reaction on the ground) drives me out of my mind.

Yes, it was wrong how the change was suddenly introduced in BC, yes it's the fault of governments that they haven't done a good job explaining it but this notion of a groundswell movement to undo the HST on the idea that it's a "tax grab" blows my mind. I think I need more than a party line to chant before I make up my mind on a major public policy. I can't just run around yelling "Tax grab! Tax grab! Tax grab!"

The notion that BC is somehow being "punished" by being expected to the return the money is strange to me. The money was for something, you decided not to do that something so please give the money back. It's not a punitive measure for cancelling the agreement... the money had a purpose and the purpose is no longer on the table with the cancellation of the tax.

OK, you want to undo the HST deal with the federal government? Part of the deal was the money. The money was to help smooth-over the introduction of the tax, right? You didn't end up doing the tax? You don't need the money.

It wasn't a handout followed by a request to institute the HST; the two clearly went together.

It also bugs me that people who do understand the reasons behind the HST don't attempt to explain it... I would certainly like to hear their explanation, since I find most of it baffling.

The HST is a policy that's easy to misunderstand since most people either understand its complexities and the reasons for its implementation perfectly or they know almost nothing about it.

But not only do I not see governments explaining it... I don't see a lot of people out there demanding to know what the HST is for in the first place. People who are against it pretty much just go in with guns blazing. Where are the people explaining or the people asking why the HST was brought in in the first place?

I don't feel there has ever been a proper conversation about this in the public sphere but instead that people who believe in one side of the argument live in one world and people who believe in the other side live in a separate world and there's no phone line connecting the two worlds. More and more political arguments take place this way now... we've seen it in the US and now here it is in Canada.

Usually I associate Conservatives and Conservative-minded people with this kind of fuzzy reasoning but I must say I understand Jim Flaherty completely on this one.

Now on the question of should they work something out for BC to keep the money? That's a question worth asking and maybe it will be asked but I have been waiting for the shoe to drop on whether or not Jim Flaherty will be wanting the money back.

Sure, the provinces really, really need money and so do municipalities and there is a big problem in this regard. But is that really a link between taking $1.6 Billion to implement a policy, not implementing the policy and then wanting to keep the $1.6 Billion?

I just can't believe the shock at the expectation that the money should go back. Firstly it doesn't make any sense... I would understand if they were asking the Federal Government to consider letting them keep the money and they would try to come to some sort of an arrangement. But it seems more like demands and expectations based on people's own reasoning that's separate from what an "agreement" means.

Secondly I'm surprised because these people don't seem to understand Jim Flaherty at all. Of course he wants the money back. Who thought he would walk away and just let someone keep $1.6 Billion as a thank you for not following the economic policy he supports? The government's not handing out blank cheques, guys... the election's over. Now you have to deal with the government we actually have, not the government that was running in the election.

I can't wait to see where this goes, politically.

Does the government see this as Conservatives VS NDP? Will it become We need to support the West? Or is it Fiscal Conservatism, or what is it? There's gonna be a lot of spin on this one and I can't wait to see the shape it takes.

Will they end up having to try to salvage their reputations with regards to the HST, since they haven't really had to wear the HST as an issue very much? People have been directing their unhappiness at their provincial governments on this one... maybe this will be what makes people widen their aim on their dissatisfaction.

If nothing else, this may be what finally makes people realize that the federal government really is involved in the HST thing and it wasn't all dreamed up by the Premieres.

Canada Headed for a Double-Dip Recession?

2011-09-13T18:04:00.000-07:00

CBC reports today that Scotiabank is mulling over the possibility of a Canadian recession.

This could make Canada the first major Western nation to re-enter recession.

I don't find this surprising because I work in sales, right on the front line of the economy and I've seen what's been going on. In my experience people are sort of acting from a recession mindset in their purchasing, but not quite. They're off and on about it.

This report isn't a prediction of some huge recession but if you consider the definition of a recession to be two periods of economic contraction... well the fact a bank is talking about it as a possibility kind of shows that things aren't going as well as people think they are, even if this recession never happens on paper.

I'm sure people will argue and argue and argue about this but the fact is that if we're close enough to have the argument about whether or not we are in a recession then things aren't as great as people have been predicting they would be.

The part I found the most interesting about hearing discussions about this subject today is people trying to redefine what a "recession" is. You know... "just because we technically have two quarters or contraction does that really mean it's a recession?"

First of all: yeah, it does.

Secondly: I don't think the problem is really whether it's "technically" a recession or not. It's that we're so close to the line of being in a recession that anyone mentioned it in the first place.

We keep hearing over and over that Canada is doing so well or "relatively" well and as true as that may be, "relatively" things still aren't going great.

The very notion that people try to get technical about what a recession is or isn't kind of shows how desperate people are to believe that everything's fine. If your growth for two periods in a row is within a fraction of a percent of zero, be it on the right side or the wrong side of zero, things aren't going well. Why argue about the terminology? We don't have the conditions we thought we would have a year ago. That's the important thing to know.

Can we stop defining the good or bad of the country's economic status by "recession" or "no recession" so annoying people on TV don't have to try to change the definition of what a recession is to make the economy seem like it's better than it is? I don't want to listen to weeks of people arguing about words like "technical recession" and "slowdown".

Things are alright, under the circumstances. But they're not great. This situation is unpredictable and we're doing the best we can with it.

Why can't anyone ever just say that?

Massive Black Out In California

2011-09-08T22:12:00.000-07:00

There are reports that up to 2 million people are without power around the US-Mexico border.

These reports don't mention that there was also a (probably unrelated) large power outage in Detroit earlier today. Fortunately there was a newsreel running about the Detroit outage across the bottom of the screen while I was watching All My Children (I get all my news from soap opera news crawls), otherwise I might never have heard about it.

Quite a pair of events for a day on which the president makes a speech about repairing America's infrastructure.

Pass This Bill

2011-09-08T21:33:00.000-07:00

Loved it. Technically.

This is the speech that actually causes some small movement on Capitol Hill (possibly very small) or is Obama's platform for running against Congress in the next election.

I'll rank the move as solid.

The plan?... Well... At this point any kind of action, whether sensible or not would be something. The whole situation left the orbit of "making sense" a long time ago so what's the point in arguing about whether it makes sense or not? Remember we're talking about America. They only care about how stuff likes this makes them "feel". And I'm thinking for most people it's making them feel good. Pass this bill.

It simultaneously ties in Obama supporters with non-committed people of the variety that are "independent" because they can't stand anyone in government. For those who are "independent" because they don't understand any of this stuff, the speech had a good broad message, said the things regular people are looking to hear and finally spoke to Republicans in their own language: by stating its message clearly over and over and over and over until it had no choice but to sink in. Pass this bill.

It made people have to become part of the speech itself and the momentum it is trying to generate by having so many lines that people had to be seen standing and applauding for that it made unwilling Republicans part of the speech's own momentum. Tricky. Pass this bill.

At this point I think Obama supporters or would-be Obama supporters are anxious enough to see something happen that they'll take anything he can compromise through the house... so when they hear him say over and over that the bill will be "paid for" they may just be willing to skip over the "how" or ignore the part where he wants to make cuts they don't necessarily like. If anything it goes with his doubtless future argument that he offered compromises... and even offered to negotiate on Medicare and Social Security, even agreed with the idea that regulation could sometimes be harmful to business: basically to argue that he came to the table and the Republicans offered nothing. So even if the plan never gets anywhere it's part of his strategy of running against Congress in the next election. Pass this bill.

Republicans have no recourse to complain about the bill not being paid for because they don't care how tax cuts are paid for or some of them argue that tax cuts pay for themselves. How are they going to argue against how to pay for tax cuts or that tax cuts are too expensive? Pass this bill.

He did however leave them their main avenue of attack: revealing in the speech that he plans to pursue tax reform on the rich... but if he didn't say that he would have left it open for them to say it and to define it in any way they would like. This was a rare moment when real people might actually be watching (just might). If not they may eventually hear about what happened from somewhere other than TV and radio pundits. So he had to take the opportunity while people are listening to define the kind people who don't want to stop the rich from paying less tax than their secretaries as part of the problem, rather than as "job creators", in fact he took it one further and described small business owners as "job creators" and said the tax code is unfairly weighting the taxes of those small business "job creators" against the big corporate ones. Just like regular people being taxed out of sync from rich people... so if real people really are listening to the speech, hopefully that finally starts to gain some traction outside the polls and finally takes to the streets. And again if this plan never leads to anything, that's just another plank in his future election campaign to run against Congress. Pass this bill.

We all know that tomorrow the Republicans will come out saying that the speech was meaningless because they want to see real proposals and they want to have "something on paper" but that's not a policy argument. So there may have been even just a little push forward for Barack Obama on this one, finally. And for those who want to stall the process so they don't look like they're trying to stop it, but just take it in due course... well Barack Obama knows one thing about the media: they'll count the number of times each word was used in the speech and that would include language like "soon" and "tomorrow" and not forgetting of course, "pass this bill".

Please Hold While One Of Our Agents Destroys Your Credit Score

2011-09-06T12:39:00.000-07:00

So Rogers is now expanding out into the financial services field with credit cards and likely other forms of payments.

Although they have no plans on creating a real banking operation with deposits and withdrawals, etc it seems like an idea whose time has come (or has long past), considering most major retail companies have these types of cards and Rogers will probably be looking into smart phone payment systems in the future, etc.

Still, would you ever intertwine your finances directly with Rogers?

Based on how they handle everything else I'm pretty sure I would stay away from this idea and I mean away.

For a company that the majority of people that I know use, it's probably the company that the majority of people I know would choose as their most hated company that they buy from.

Everything they do is always such a hassle and then it goes wrong. And then you try to get them to solve it and they can't solve it. Then they say they're going to solve it and they screw that up too.

Would you ever formally take out credit with such an organization?

I purchased a smart phone from Rogers six months ago... all they had to do was switch my old phone number to a Rogers account. Sounds simple. But instead they took my old phone number from another company and put my father's name on the account instead of mine for some unexplicable reason, although the phone number was in my name for years before that, being paid by me, on my credit card and I came in to buy the phone myself and gave them my name and it is to this day being charged to the same credit card as always, which is mine.

Now anytime I want service on my own phone, they only want to speak to my father.

And they spelled his name wrong.

And they won't change that either.

My e-mail doesn't work on my smart phone because they said they had a technical problem in the store so they couldn't help me and I do not have online billing because of the same technical problem. When I call the phone number to ask for online billing they say I have to do it through the store I picked the phone up at. But the store says they are still having the technical problem.

This technical problem goes back six months.

Don't even get me started on how my cable doesn't work or the fact there have been three people here in the last nine months seeking to make the repair necessary to the cable but none of them have any information about the nature of the problem and none of them have managed to actually repair it.

I don' t think these are isolated incidents.

Why oh why would I want a credit card from Rogers?

Harper Government 3

2011-04-30T17:16:00.000-07:00

Rock With Me

2011-04-14T20:10:00.001-07:00

After hearing the allegations of an "iPod tax" there's one thing I want to see tomorrow: Michael Ignatieff wearing an iPod.

A bright green, super-flashy obvious one with white ear buds.

Instead of ignoring this or trying to brush it off I want to see Michael Ignatieff take advantage of this. Run with this opportunity and not let there be an issue of "is there or is there not a proposed iPod tax" but call attention to the side of this that matters, especially to Ignatieff. And that is taking this issue up on the point that goes "this ad is false."

It is not true that Ignatieff did not gain anything by only coming across as average in the debates; this is a partial victory. Many people tuned in to find out that Ignatieff is nothing like what they were led to believe: not stuck up, not self-centered, not fancy, not British, not a count, not a cartoon character in an attack ad but perfectly average. After all those ads claiming how unsavoury he supposedly is, it makes the people placing the ads seem dishonest, if only subconsciously.

I would like to see Ignatieff pick up on this track and make it real and tangible by saying that these all of these attack ads are untrue, as you can see by the fact that he does not wear make up or stop his limousine to get Grey Poupon and that this is just another example of dishonesty. Because this attack ad about the alleged "iPod tax" is not just a matter of opinion but a matter of fact it is possible to show directly that the ad is misleading. What was in this vote that supposedly endorses an "iPod tax" is a matter of public record. Show that it is not what the ad claims. In order to try to say that anything in the party's actions support a $75 iPod tax the person making this claim has to not know what they're talking about or deliberately trying to be misleading, assuming no one will ever bother to check up on this claim.

Let the press ask Stephen Harper why he's running this attack ad when it is demonstrably false.

Point out that the Liberal Party's opposition to this issue is committed to print.

Go for it, I say.

Turn this attack ad (and all the others) into an opportunity.

These ads are dishonest. Point it out and remind people that this attempt at dishonesty tells them all they need to know about the people telling them these "messages".

It's also a great aside to the issues surrounding contempt of Parliament and the alleged- misleading-of-Parliament in the allegedly-leaked-alleged-Auditor-General's-report on the G8 spending in Huntsville.

Dishonesty is a key point to be made in this campaign and contempt is supposed to be the reason for calling the election. The "trustworthiness" of the leaders is constantly being made an issue in the media and this all goes into it.

Election 2015

2011-03-28T22:04:00.000-07:00

The Conservative Party is making promises of tax relief well off in the future, after the deficit is eliminated.

But we are always hearing that the deficit won't be eliminated for five years (or more) and so the next Parliament is unlikely to make it long enough to see the end of the deficit. Therefore this promise wouldn't be likely to be implemented for about five years.

Is Stephen Harper actually already campaigning for the next election?

That's a funny thing to do for someone who says he doesn't want an election and just wants to get on with the business of governing.

Smells Like China

2010-10-01T11:00:00.000-07:00

Everyone, mark the date on your calendar.

Today was the day that we started living in a world where corporate penny-pinching has become so unstoppable that Fisher Price can recall 10 000 000 products for safety problems in one day and it doesn't seem to be getting viewed as a really big deal.

I'm not sure this is the kind of thing that, say, ten years ago could have been taken is stride by consumers or parents.

In fact I used to work in a toy store so I know that as recently as three years ago a recall a lot less shocking sent the children's toy market off its axis for months.

It seems people are now used to this type of thing.

"Oh, another recall. So what else is new?"

I have been on the front line of these recalls several times.

They usually go the same way:

1. There is a massive recall of a potentially dangerous item (or set of items).

2. There is about an hour of shock and uncertainty as the news makes its way around.

3. Consumers calm themselves down, remind themselves not to be unreasonable and then proceed with the recall or replacement procedures calmly.

4. The whole thing is forgotten. People have an idea once they calm themselves that this was an isolated incident and these things happen so just continue with the process and then move on from it when you have your item replaced or repaired.

5. People on phone-in radio shows and comment sections on the online versions of the news story remind you that you have a choice to buy things made in China or not. They tell you that you can always choose the American or Canadian-made product and pay a little more if that has value to you.

Problem: Step 5 is not really true anymore and hasn't been for years.

I used to manage a toy store. A good toy store. The kind of toy store people go to when they are willing to spend more for better stuff and cast off the big box toy stores and toy departments.

Most people in Canada do not have access to a store as nice as this because they tend to be located in urban centers due to the limited market for children's products that are more expensive but of higher manufacturing and educational quality. I would say that on average half or more of parents have less choices than this and have to satisfy themselves with big box toy stores and the toy departments of department stores and that limits your quality choices even more (oddly this is still often the case even in very large big box toy stores that seem to have never-ending choices... if you look closely you commonly see that the level of quality and educational value is quite limited despite what looks like limitless options to choose from).

After these types of recalls people start to come in demanding products not made in China (because China is stereotyped as being the problem in these cases but it doesn't have to be China... it can be anywhere).

When people start asking this question you know you're going to have a hard week because you have to tell people that they don't have choices and they don't like that.

This store has a binder that outlines not the products that are made in China that people may choose to want to avoid but it is a binder of all the products that are not made in China because the list of non-China stuff is a fraction of the list of stuff that's made in China.

Once again, to be fair, there is no rule that says things made in China are bad. There is no real way to predict these recalls, but I can't remember any in my experience where the recall was of toys made in Germany or France. Maybe there are some but the ones I dealt with tended to deal with emerging-market manufacturing nations. Still they represent only a fraction of all the products we carried by those countries... but I think everyone understands the point that culturally consumers now associate hazardous products with being made in China. Someone recently returned something to the home store where I now work on the grounds that it was made of fabric and yet somehow managed to make her house smell like fish. She asked whether that was a result of a chemical in the packaging it came in or just "the smell of something that happened to it in China." It smelled inexplicably toxic for no apparent reason. A co-worker made the same comment recently about a set of wooden products that claim to be just wood and white paint and yet smell like something out of the lab of a mad scientist, even through a shrink-wrapped package. There is an assumption of toxicity with any anomaly these days and the blame automatically goes in people's minds to China.

Anyway you come into the store, ask for something not made in China and you're given a list of your choices and most of them are things like "stickers" and "glue sticks".

If you ask for "something for a 7 year-old boy and not made in China" you're going to find yourself with two choices.

If you would like "a set of wooden blocks for a toddler not made in China" you may find you have one choice and no others. If you ask that question in a big box store you will probably find that you have no choices at all.

It's also true that a lot of the classic brands that even experts and teachers associate as being the high-end or "quality" brands and as being made in the US are now being made overseas and no one noticed the change until "Made in China" and "recall" became dirty words.

There's been a real shift.

You don't really have these choices anymore.

Once a company moves its manufacturing to a ridiculously cheap overseas location it will not move it back.

And here's the thing: the more companies that do it, the less other companies are afraid of following suit. If all of your competitors are increasing their profit margins exponentially by manufacturing in the Philippines your shareholders will expect you to do the same. And if you all manufacture in the Philippines then there's no alternative for consumers to buy a domestic brand so you've got nothing to lose in your PR by making the switch because people have nowhere else to go with their purchase.

If consumers want to take action there's not much they can do. You have to do a lot of research just to find a US-based or a Canadian-based manufacturer of toys these days. They're out there but there's not a lot of choice for you if you plan on ruling out every company with a long list of recalls to their name or who manufactures in countries you find suspicious. Parents don't generally have time to meticulously research every doll they purchase for their children just to find one that they really want to support financially and thereby "vote with their dollar". Those choices are being taken away.

These recalls are getting to be so normal that I fear people are just getting used to them. They're just another part of the culture.

Can you imagine fifteen years ago that you would ever hear the words "Fisher Price" or Barbie the same article as the words "genital bleeding"? There would have been an outrage and huge financial consequences for Fisher Price, and yet today it is being reported that Mattel's stock price (the parent company of Fisher Price) isn't expected to be affected in any major way and that by the end of trading today the stock had mostly stabilized.

Not only does this represent a growing problem in manufacturing and all kinds of products we use day to day (toys get the most coverage but there are recalls for all kinds of crucial things... including a few memorable ones for cars) but the more these things happen, the more companies manage our expectations so that recalls and huge safety problems no longer seem as terrible as they once did. Slowly but surely people are becoming desensitized to them and we build a tolerance for these kinds of problems into our expectations of products and markets... just as companies want us to.

Even those who are conscious of the problem find they have a hard time planting their money somewhere else as these things become just another part of the collective narrative we now passively consume as the world flashes past us in thirty-second news clips that we never bother to look into any more deeply.

People have an idea that the free market will take care of them.

They don't seem to understand that the market is in their hands and requires action from them if they want to exercise any kind of control in it.

All too often people give up their power to others and just assume that those other people will use it in their best interests. This is true not just in the marketplace but is becoming more common in our daily activities at large.

Let's get real and declare what we will and won't accept.

Do you think these problems would have happened if people had responded more forcefully to the last recall and the recall before that? Or do you think the point would have been received by toy companies to tighten their control and testing over their products? (I know that some of these companies, including mainstream ones use testing procedures so lax they would shock the pants off of you).

Here's another question: do you think that Fisher Price just learned of all of these safety problems on Thursday? The recalls go across all different kinds of lines from trikes to high chairs to figurines. Do you think they discover simultaneously that all of these products had potential safety problems and they announced them all on the same day because they all came to their attention at the same time? Or do you think they've known about some or many of these problems for a while and went in for the recall because they had reached a breaking point of problems where they had so many complaints they couldn't ignore them any longer?

I would like to know the event that caused Mattel to release all of these recalls simultaneously in a big group rather than one-by-one as the problems arose... certainly one recall at a time spread out over months or years would have attracted less attention than recalling 10 000 000 items all at one time.

Is there a precipitating event for this announcement? I doubt if it had anything to do with caution and nobility.

What They Should Say...

2010-06-09T19:39:00.000-07:00

OK, so it's coming out that the lake didn't cost $ 2 Million. It cost more like $57 000.

The lighthouse didn't cost $100 000. It cost more like $1000.

That doesn't change the fact that when this news broke the government went into overdrive defending those incorrect costs.

They got up there and went right ahead defending the $2 Million dollar lake for the first day until Stephen Harper came along and said the lake didn't cost $2 Million.

So here's what I want the Liberal Party to say: When the government was accused of spending $2 Million on this lake why didn't they immediately correct the figure?

Why in the face of that accusation did it take them until the following day to find out it wasn't true? Why didn't they come out and just say "the lake does not cost $2 Million. It costs $57 000." The key question: Why doesn't the government know how much money is being spent on what at the G-20 summit?

If they were so accountable and such good fiscal managers, wouldn't they know whether or not they had spent $2 Million on a lake?

Who approved this lake? Clearly not the ministers or they would have come right out and denied the $ 2 Million.

Who else has the authority but the Ministers and Parliamentary Secretaries responsible to authorize a $2 Million project to build a lake for three days?

2010-06-08T14:35:00.000-07:00

I'm just having a really hard time taking Evan Solomon seriously.

How does a change of host radically alter the trajectory of this program so much?

Isn't there some kind of politics editor at CBC that makes sure Power and Politics follows a certain course?

If the hosts have so much power to put their own stamp on the show, Bring back Rosemary Barton!

What They Should Say...

2010-04-29T22:01:00.000-07:00

Conservatives say: They stand for transparency and accountability because they passed the Accountability Act.

Liberals should say: Clearly the Accountability Act is a failure.

Plain. Simple. Opens a conversation. Takes the Accountability Act off the table as an excuse. Hard to deny. Makes you see why investigating the Jaffer affair is important to Parliament.

Just Visiting...

2010-04-17T15:33:00.001-07:00

No offense to Evan Solomon but does anyone else love it when Rosemary Barton hosts Power and Politics?

Guess Who's Hiring...

2009-11-27T07:25:00.000-08:00

It must have been the fault of the low-level employees because they're getting replaced...

Think you can do better? Go ahead and apply...

You Get The Best Of Both Worlds, Chill It Out Take It Slow Then We'll Rock Out This Show

2009-09-15T20:48:00.000-07:00

OK.

I think the situation has turned out quite nicely.

I won't say I was against an election per se, but I was definitely not gunning for it.

What the Liberal Party needed more than an election, more than anything, was a chance to get out of the corner it had been backed to, from which it had to support the government all the time whether it liked it or not.

By showing the willingness to support the government in the Liberal Party's place, Jack? has provided that opportunity.

This solves a long-standing problem: people have been thinking the Liberal Party and the Conservative Party are the same. Solution: The Liberal Party is now fully able to do what it is supposed to be doing as the Official Opposition, which is to oppose.

While the NDP frets over the situation it's gotten itself into, the Liberal Party is now free to go on with its business, which means voting against the government and proposing policy alternatives.

Who knows how long this little bubble will last? The Liberal Party needs to now take full advantage of the time to define itself as being completely different from the Conservative Party, something that's been hard to do whilst supporting the government, however unintentionally.

The roles have reversed, the NDP has all the problems that go with supporting the government (along with some extra ones that are special to the NDP) and the Liberals can oppose, oppose, oppose.

Fantastic.

Not only that, but the NDP has lost the ability to say that the Liberals are the same as or share the policies of the Conservatives solely on the grounds of voting with the govenment because that is an accusation the NDP will face in return.

Even if this position is only open for a few weeks, the time has come to take full advantage of it and finally be an official opposition.

The party and the leader should keep doing what they have started doing just like they knew for certain there would be an election coming soon (there may still be) and continue on the plan they had for themselves.

Let the NDP and the Conservatives create and juggle their own problems and use the moment of breath to go full speed on opposition.

None of this would have ever been possible if it hadn't have been for at least half of the Liberal Party showing its willingness to call for an election and the leadership's decision to share that willingness.

That bold action has paid off.

Whether there is an election soon or a little later, the decision to be OK with calling an election in the first place set up the circumstances that made this possible.

I hope we will see more bold action in the future but that the Liberal Party does not lose itself to a frenzy of excitement not shared by the public at large (I still don't hear anyone on the street supporting the idea of actually having an election now).

View From the Outside

2009-08-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Have you ever read the New York Times index bio on Stephen Harper?

It doesn't read like anything you'd see in a newspaper here, despite being pretty accurate.

Check it out.

Good News

2009-07-23T20:16:00.000-07:00

I'm so glad the recession's over.

I'm taking this news as true, since I believe everything Mark Carney says. That man is a genius.

I am also relieved that Canadian versions of food have more salt. I love salt! Woohoo!

Guess Who's Hiring

2009-07-18T10:53:00.001-07:00

And advertised for a 12-month term only.

Who says that having long-term employees who are experts in their job and develop loyalty to their employer is important?

Why bother with that when you can have a bunch of migrants who come and go and use their position for what they want to get out of it and nothing else?

Sound like a job you might like? Good at preventing shoplifting?

Apply here.

Can't Leave Anything Alone

2009-07-07T14:47:00.000-07:00

From Adam M is 30

Republicans always want to talk about tradition and respect.

But they can never let anything go when they should and they'll never miss an opportunity to bad-mouth dead people or cause a scene in relation to someone's funeral they don't like, including going and protesting right at peoples' funerals in some cases.

It should come as no surprise that they're after the death of Michael Jackson.

What a shock.

Republican congressman Pete King has put out a YouTube video talking about what a pedophile Michael Jackson was. Now, whatever people may or may not think about that claim, it is true that several people tried to charge him with that legally and never managed to get him convicted so in the eyes of the law and of democracy he was technically innocent.

Even if that wasn't the case, why can't a person just let someone's funeral go by without making videos on the internet alleging crimes and wrongdoings against them? Why can't you say that stuff next week?

Now I agree that the media coverage of Michael Jackson's death has been overblown but it was Michael Jackson. It's not like the third runner up from American Idol died and the media has whipped it up into a frenzy.

People have the connection to Michael Jackson they have to any celebrity: they feel like they know him. Especially those that loved his music before he started getting weird and he was nothing more than the biggest celebrity in the world with no bleaching, no nose surgeries, no oxygen tank, no monkey and all that.

Also keep in mind that he was a pop icon. Even if you want to say that was only true in the 70's and 80's that's still really saying something. He influenced pop music and the culture of pop music at the time when the modern era of pop was still forming and when MTV was in its early stages. And he made that. And you can read the long list of cheesy pop stars and rappers who are crediting him this week as being their main influence.

Looking back to my childhood I can still remember the crazy obsession with that guy that everyone had, especially kids who take celebrity and pop culture so much more seriously (witness: 10 year-old girls crying when they get to shake Paris Hilton's hand on a red carpet. I mean at 10 years old, why does meeting Paris Hilton make you cry?)

Anyway I agree that the whole thing is overblown but I think it's true that people are talking about it and talking about it like crazy. At the bus station last night I was sitting next to two strangers who struck up a conversation about it.

And they're still talking about it a week later and probably will be for some time.

So I think it's too much but I'm willing to let it go considering who it is. I think the obsession is something worthy of being accepted without too much complaint even though it's way over the top.

Here is the video of Pete King. Based on how much it's been reported on today you should expect to keep hearing about it.

A YouTube search also brings up Whoopie Goldberg's response. Normally I wouldn't find that overwhelming but it's interesting enough. So here it is.

I saw this creeping across my Facebook crawl... you may recall about 15 years ago there was a scandal about a man rushing on stage and "attacking" Michael Jackson during a performance and then he was arrested and faced charges.

Just to refresh your memory: The "man" in question was Jarvis Cocker, the lead singer of ultra-modern-classic 90's indie pop band Pulp. That band is one of my favorites back from the days when I was cool.

The event was the 1996 Brit Awards when Pulp was at its height.

In fact British music was at a real high then and Jarvis Cocker was unhappy that the headline act of the Brit Awards in a year when Britain was cranking out all of the world's best (IMHO) music and he also objected to Michael Jackson posing as Jesus and posing with throngs of children in the performance.

So he rushed the stage and did some adolescent attention-getting little pranks.

Anyway, here is the Brit Awards. Skip ahead to about the 4-minute mark to see Jarvis Cocker and his little shananigans. At one point you'll see him run in front of the big screen at the back and make various little gestures. The messianic part that was the trouble point for a lot of people happens at the end.

And here is Jarvis cocker appearing on a panel recently, revisiting the incident after a question in the audience on the subject.

Adam M Live

2009-06-27T19:16:00.001-07:00

A little self-advertising...

I have one more show to go in the run of my one man show, Ten Years, the story of how I came to be unemployed and living in my parents' basement at age 30.

The show is at 8 PM, Sunday June 28 and runs for one hour.

It takes place at The Ottawa Fringe Festival, Arts Court Library... that's 2 Daly Avenue (next to the Rideau Centre).

Framing The Question

2009-06-14T16:30:00.001-07:00

Here is what Michael Ignatieff needs to do to define the decision to go to an election or not.

Regardless of what action is taken the correct question is this: "We need to decide whether it is more harmful to the economy to have an election now or to let this government stay in power."

It makes the point, is destined to be repeated in the press and is a call to arms to all the opposition parties and their voters.

This avoids the confusion and puts the Conservatives on the defensive to explain what's so great about them. It gives the media an issue to accuse the government of being incompetent economic managers without having to accuse them of that themselves and then the Conservatives have to defend and the media can continue to challenge: "But what about this, and what about that, etc."

Closing The Case

2009-06-09T13:36:00.000-07:00

With everything that's happened, being able to make traction on the Lisa Raitt Toronto Port Authority expense scandal can really be the final thing (and just perfectly timed) to finish her off.

It's going to be hard to make it get attention or make people think they care (especially in light of the seriousness of the other problems with Lisa Raitt).

I hope Olivia Chow can make it stick.

Someone has got to do something to show the Conservative party they can't just do anything they want and think they can media spin their way out of it.

Show them that they do have to be accountable for their actions and if they are careless and arrogant and incompetent that heads will roll.

It shouldn't take so many scandals piling up to make it happen but the fact is clear: nothing is going to happen to Lisa Raitt without some major action making what she's done stick to her since the Conservatives truly believe they can make anything slide off anyone like water off a duck's back.

Make it happen, Olivia.

Priorities

2009-06-09T13:32:00.000-07:00

When Lisa Raitt lost the secret documents she let down her party. And she offered to resign.

When Lisa Raitt used hideous language relating to the Health Crisis her ministry is in she let down her country and her fellow citizens. But she didn't offer to resign or apologize.

Why is a crime against her party suitable for offering her resignation but a crime against the public is not?

Missing the Target

2009-06-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

I don't think Michael Ignatieff landed the target on Lisa Raitt during question period.

There is a lot of confusion at what the issues are in Raitt's new case of stupidity and I think they needed to be approached in a more clear way.

You need to ask Conservatives short, clear questions they can't run around. And then when they do run around them at least you have something to show that they avoided what you asked them.

There are at least two separate things the Opposition needed to hang on Lisa Raitt today:

1. The question of her competence, re-opened by the apparent callousness in the way she approaches the isotope crisis.

2. A public apology for her comments.

I didn't feel like Michael Ignatieff landed either.

I mean, it's obvious that all the parties are going to demand Raitt's resignation but we all know that they won't get it. It's right for them to ask and the refusal of Stephen Harper to give it or consider it gives them something to show in the future as his heartlessness and failure to take the situation seriously.

They need to get the apology. Actually get the result.

But talking about competence allowed all calls for an apology to be swept aside by the usual Conservative double-talk.

It is a valid and important to point to make for members to get up and ask Raitt how she can look people in the eye after her comments but of course her response is the standard "asking that is just talk", whereas she has taken action (if she can show it).

So that's not the same as pushing a public apology as an issue of its own because every time it's getting swept away by her and her party's responses.

A string of people need to rise and say, "Will the Minister offer a public apology?" then when the government makes its lame response rise again and make their rebuttle: "Where is the apology?"

Don't let it go, don't complicate it.

Everything else on the issue needs to be pressed of course. But a certain number of members need to devote themselves to demanding the apology.

Lisa Raitt doesn't seem willing to offer it. That in itself is basically as bad as saying the things she said in the first place. She doesn't think there's anything wrong with what she said. Neither does Stephen Harper, otherwise he would march her out there and make her give an apology.

It is true that by not making an apology or forcing one, Stephen Harper makes Lisa Raitt's words his own and his government's.

It's clear that their "communications strategy" (the set of PR regulations that have replaced, governance, intelligence, compassion and democracy as the set of rules the government operates on) is that there's nothing wrong with what she said. It was a private conversation and they want to move on.

They are going to keep that up because they don't know how to say or do anything their PR department didn't tell them to say or do.

Demand the apology. Select names of members of Parliament and devote them to nothing but that.

It's owed. And it won't be forthcoming without a lot more demanding than what was displayed today.

People deserve it and they want it. They're not going to get it without someone forcing it.

The issue of Lisa Raitt's tape is going to be very quickly transformed into "gossip", "not a real issue", "it doesn't matter", etc. so someone has to make sure that what has to happen after the release of that tape does happen.

A little focus on what's at stake and what the accountability that is required should be is needed.

It is apparent that neither Stephen Harper nor Lisa Raitt feels bad enough to apologize for what's happened. They also don't have the moral compass to know that an apology is the right thing, not to mention the obvious thing to do. They only have a list of instructions from the communications officers in their offices.

Better people than they are have to get that apology for the people of Canada.

Body Language

2009-06-09T12:51:00.000-07:00

If you watch Question Period on a regular basis you notice the always-entertaining facial expressions and reactions of Helena Guergis. Whenever a member of the Cabinet speaks Helena is almost always in the shot doing over-the-top facial expressions, nodding her head like a Pez dispenser and yelling and screaming in the background about anything and everything.

Today, each time Lisa Raitt was on camera, Helena was uncharacteristically quiet. In fact, she often looked away from Lisa Raitt and could be seen looking at her desk, looking at the floor and at one point fiddling with her outfit as Raitt spoke while the rest of the Conservatives offered or pretended to offer their support and applause to Raitt as she spun her nonsense and side-stepped the issues put berfore her by the Opposition parties.

I wonder what that was about.

It seems like such a small thing but after watching Guergis and her three-ring circus of what can only be described as clown-school overracting enthusiasm for whatever the party line was on any given day why is she now on today of all days doing what anyone who has ever known a four year-old child can recognize as deliberately trying to make someone know that you're ignoring them.

Maybe she's just having a slow day. Maybe she has her own opinion of Raitt and the situation she's put herself and the government in.

But I've always wondered if Guergis's buffoonery was not a command performance commissioned by the party brass, knowing she's usually on camera when the important members are speaking.

If that's so I wonder if she decided to be dismissive today or she was asked to.

Just something spinning around the back of my mind...

It's In The Details

2009-06-09T07:42:00.000-07:00

This John Baird is a rude bastard scandal has been awesome so far.

But does it have legs? Another private conversation overheard, not intended for public repetition, a badly behaved individual venting his anger privately to coworkers, but no secret tape (one of the few Tory scandals relating to the character of the Government's members to not involve a secret tape... ironic since it seems to have happened in a room full of reporters).

Is there a real issue here?

Well, there's the idea that if someone fills out a form incorrectly they're not engaging with you as a partner, that's pretty cold from one level of government to another and not much of a team or caring spirit. There's the implication that Toronto can't get federal stimulus money because it's not Tory enough and the money will go to ridings supporting the Tories. Just an implication but one that's bound to be made and assumed, especially in Toronto.

The excuse for this is that Toronto's proposal does not qualify because it does not create jobs within two years within Toronto.

The jobs would be created in Thunder Bay.

So we have:

1. Toronto can't get stimulus money.

2. Not filling out a form properly disqualifies citizens of this country from participating in Federal Government programs, which those citizens pay for and which their children and grand children will probably end up paying for, lest we fail to take seriously what a big deal the stimulus package is and how crucial it is that it go to the right places and uses.

3. The Federal Government was handed an opportunity to create or support jobs in Thunder Bay with a project worth more than $1 billion and has said "No thanks" and won't give the money, despite the economic crisis and the pre-existing stimulus money that is just waiting to be spent on projects of this nature.

4. The obvious (but less likely to get attention issue) that the Ministry of Transport has failed to provide funding for public transportation to Canada's largest city and one of the country's great public transportation systems on a technicality and are not willing to let the technicality go in order to get the money flowing and allow Thunder Bay and Bombardier a golden opportunity to create jobs and receive stimulus money for exactly the purpose it was morally intended (even if it isn't within the technical parameters of the program).

5. Ontario just lost a $1.2 Billion stimulus project that would have benefited two of our cities on a technicality.

Good job.

A Conservative cabinet minister from Ontario just smacked Ontario right across the face (and swore at it no less). It seems the Conservative Government will leave no detail un-nitpicked in its quest to leave Ontario out and continue its petty grudge against the province and (what this is probably about) the McGuinty Government of Ontario.

What's On Tonight?...

2009-06-04T19:07:00.000-07:00

Am I the only one who hasn't seen this?

This Is Commonplace

2009-06-04T19:02:00.000-07:00

So apparently Lisa Raitt's behavior was commonplace.

Here's something else I don't understand... Lisa Raitt supposedly had these documents out at CTV to brief for her interview. Was her interview about cost overruns at Chalk River?

What was in this secret file that she was going to divulge to the media?

Did she at any time talk about the $1.7 Billion or the $72 Million in this CTV interview? Did she talk about the long period for repairs to reactors?

What was in this secret file that she felt she could talk about on national television?

The likelihood that that is the reason she had this file out insecurely is pretty remote to me. Take another shot at that one, Stephen. See if you can come up with something more convincing.

Something I Don't Understand

2009-06-03T21:45:00.000-07:00

I'm sorry, but how did a director of communications happen to have custody of documents marked secret and serially numbered as such?

If Lisa Raitt had to hand the documents off to someone to do a TV appearance, why to a communications director?

Maybe her communications director has secret clearance, I don't know. But why is it her business to hold on to such files?

Her job presumably doesn't require her to be familiar with the files. She doesn't sift through the Lisa Raitt's files and make her own determinations about what the situation of the Ministry of Natural Resources is. She's told what to say by those whose job it is to know what's in the files.

She's not a policy advisor.

Her job does not involve actioning any of the information in the files (from what I've heard of what's in them).

She's not an executive assistant.

So if the documents are sensitive enough to be marked as secret and numbered and to be signed out for use and be required to be signed back in, why is there no distinction between who can hold them (however temporarily) and who can't?

I think if I was a government minister and I was travelling with secret files I would know at least in the back of my mind who from my staff that was with me was allowed to handle them and who wasn't. And if I really thought I had to hand them to a member of my staff who wasn't technically allowed to handle them I would return the files to the locked briefcase I am supposed to be carrying them in and then give them to that staff member that way instead of just handing over the files.

However they were not given to her in a locked briefcase, as it has been suggested they should have been. CTV didn't find a locked briefcase and break into it; they found the files.

These aren't receipts for a business lunch that they lost. They were marked secret government documents relating to several nuclear power plants.

Presumably the scapegoat in question was given the files because Lisa Raitt was on TV or about to go on TV. I can follow the story up to that point. But this means that she therefore had possession of the files unsupervised by the minister.

It's like no one in the government has ever seen a spy show before. Don't take your eyes off secret documents.

Maybe Lisa Raitt didn't leave the files lying around at CTV. But she handed them off in an insecure manner to someone else, something she never should have done. What happened to them next is definitely her fault because she let them out of her control and seemingly never asked for them back.

It is not true that what happened is the sole responsibility of the staff member who left the files behind. The chain of events started when Lisa Raitt let the documents out of her posession. It is not likely that Jasmine MacDonnell wrestled the files away from Lisa Raitt and then left them at CTV and that the concussion Lisa Raitt got during the struggle made her forget to ask for them back.

If Lisa Raitt gave the files to someone who gave the files to someone who gave the files to Jasmine MacDonnell it's all the same. Everyone in that chain is equally responsible because those were secret documents, not regular documents so the burden of responsibility is greater than usual.

Whatever happened to those documents started when Lisa Raitt let them slip through her hands into someone else's posession.

It is her fault and everyone's fault who had their hands on them after that, not just the person who left them behind at the end of the cycle.

You Know You Love Her, XOXO

2009-05-27T22:28:00.000-07:00

Everything Has A Price

2009-05-23T11:48:00.000-07:00

For a government that puts a dollar value on everything, the cover of today's Ottawa Sun shouldn't be shocking.

Somehow I think it's pretty remarkable however.

Check out Public Works's values.

A Picture's Worth 1000 Words

2009-05-13T21:08:00.000-07:00

Is this the website belonging to a self-respecting party that leads a G-8 country?

Or is it an immature gag played by teenagers who are looking for something to do while they're not paying attention in class?

Which part of this doesn't look like a highschool prank?

Is this ad supposed to be appealing to the throngs of people who think Sarah Palin is really great? Because if anyone is confused about what country they live in I think it's whoever came up with this "elitist" strategy. You know, the one that worked so well against Obama for John McCain.

Canada is a cosmopolitan nation. This is a word I think the Conservative Party should look up in the dictionary before they start hurling it as an insult. They may be surprised to learn that they're offending the underlying sense of what it means to be Canadian in this day and age.

It may be dangerous to define "ordinary Canadians" as not being cultured or not being the kind of people who would want to talk to a Harvard professor. Or have traveled the world. Or be intellectual. Or have gone to Harvard themselves. Or have lived in America. Or Europe.

Tell us more about your plans to capture the immigrant vote, Stephen Harper.

Who are the Conservatives defining with these ads? Michael Ignatieff or themselves?

I think we've learned a lot more about the Conservatives and who they are and who they believe Canadians are and are not from this exercise in Tabloid Smear Campaigning.

Here's a headline for their little magazine: Conservative Party Thinks Harvard Too Good For Ordinary Canadians.

Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better

2009-05-13T21:01:00.000-07:00

Why wait for the next volley?

Fight rhetoric with the truth.

Do not hit back with more immature attacks. Tell the arguments the way they are and let the attack ads speak for themselves, which they do very eloquently.

Character matters. Not sweaters.

Toryboy Turns Up His Nose at New Canadians

2009-05-11T20:07:00.000-07:00

In ToryBoy's latest masterpiece we learn that most of the things that make us Canadian happened in the 1980's.

If you weren't here for them, you're not a real Canadian.

This may come as a surprise to new Canadians.

If you did not share in the experience of the events above from within the country you're not, in ToryBoy's estimation, a real Canadian.

And you never can be because you didn't share in the history that makes our people who they are.

I hope this video gets a wide audience of new Canadians who look at the aforementioned events, all of which take place ten years ago or more, and say to themselves "I wasn't here for any of that". And then I hope they understand what the Conservative Party is about.

This is exactly the message the Conservative Party of Canada actually believes.

Of all the staff in my workplace, I can think of only four who were in Canada for all of these events. In fact I would venture to say that the majority of my coworkers were not in Canada for any of these events. Are they not really Canadians? Does this message help them want to become Canadians or does it make them feel like outsiders? I think that many of the events listed in this proud and patriotic list would not actually be recognizable to them.

I also know that Canadians living outside the country will be glad to know that living in another country for an extended period makes you not a Canadian. This video should do a lot to drum up overseas support for the party.

Once again the beating of the Conservative drum inadvertently shows what the movement is all about: exclusionism, an "us and them" mentality, and a disdain for worldliness.

And kudos on choosing the signing of the Constitution of 1982 and the Referendum, two Liberal victories, as examples. Shudder to think what might happen if people were to remember what the Reform Party was doing at the time of the referendum.

Now I may not be a big hockey expert (I suppose that makes me not a Canadian) but I think a good deal of Wayne Gretzky's hockey career from 1979-1999 happened outside Canada... and that would seem to defeat the point of the video's message.

But thanks for comparing Michael Ignatieff to Wayne Gretzky, two Canadians who had to leave the country in order to achieve advancement in their personal successes and careers. I'm sure Ignatieff appreciates the comparison's boost.

And now the Liberals have their answer to the question of residency. When the Conservatives say "foreigner" the Liberals say "Wayne Gretzky".

Perhaps for his next video ToryBoy would like to compare Michael Ignatieff to Shania Twain, Celine Dion or Avril Lavigne.

What Happened There?...

2009-05-10T20:28:00.000-07:00

Does anyone know what Alphainventions.com is?

All I can find about it is advertising and it hit my other blog over 400 times today. Any ideas?

Auditory Cues

2009-04-23T20:22:00.000-07:00

I would like to say out loud what I think a lot of people are thinking: when the Conservatives use the words "very clear" they are the preface to some kind of lie or outrageous distortion.

They use those words a lot. It's their version of "think outside the box".

Keep your eye on those words. Whenever you hear them coming out of one of those peoples' mouths you will hear something very far from the truth follow, whether it be a lie or something so unclear that it stretches the meaning of what truth actually means.

Moving The Bullseye

2009-04-21T13:10:00.000-07:00

The opposition parties seem to be having a hard time making the EI issue stick in a real way to the government, despite the number of people who are being damaged by it.

They seem to be having the hardest time with Diane Finlay's stonewall refrain to all criticisms, whether it be relevant to the argument or not that: "It's based on fifty-eight different regions for Employment Insurance across the country and the system adjusts automatically every month to those local employment conditions." (CBC's Politics April 20 2009)

The opposition response needs to be: "So you admit there is a systematic procedure that brings EI eligibility to some parts of the country at the expense of other parts of the country."

There you have something that starts to look like an issue.

The Liberals and NDP are trying to debate the validity of a system like that during a huge recession but every time they try they phrase their questions in such a way that whichever conservative rises from the Whack-A-Mole board to give the speech about the fifty-eight regions gets to make the statement and then walk away and that's the end of the conversation. This happens constantly in Question Period, where debates follow a strutcture the opposition parties don't seem to be able to manipulate as well as the government and also in the media, where time is limited.

The opposition parties need to open with "I question the vailidity of the system" or "these are extraordinary times, some of this huge deficit from the stimulus program should be going to bolster EI eligibility for the tax payers who are going to have to pay for the debt that's financing the stimulus package."

They need to make the program the issue, not let it be the answer to the question.

Can You Say That Again, Please?...

2009-04-21T12:37:00.000-07:00

Yesterday in a fascinating edition of CBC's Politics I found myself interested in Jack? Layton for the the first time in a while. I have decided I want to take him off my list of politicians that are just boring but I can't yet decide whether to add him to my "back in the game" list or my "hot mess" list.

He was followed by new boring list addition, Diane Finley, who is now officially an eye-roller.

She has become so predictable that Don Newman announced to Jack? what she was going to say before she even came on the program. And I think I could have told Jack? what she was going to say before the program even started because no matter what the subject of the interview was she was inevitably going to start talking about how EI is helping people retrain for new jobs and get five weeks more of benefits no matter what. If Don Newman had asked her what she thought of the weather she would have said "It's always sunny when you know you've got everyone retraining for new jobs and with five weeks more of benefits."

But I detected a chink in her Conservative fast-talk and I don't know whether there's anything to it or not but I hope someone can make something of it because it just seemed to slip by in her blah-blah-blah and I'd like to put a magnifying glass on it so that possibly someone who's sleuthier than I am can discover a clue in it.

Here's what she said: "...and frankly in a lot of areas in this country right now if someone works two days a week for the last year they will qualify for EI benefits. There's a lot of rhetoric out there that's not based on fact."

I'm sorry, what?

So there are parts of the country where part-time workers are getting EI benefits while full-time workers in other parts can't get EI at all? This is according to the Minister of Human Resources and Skills Development. She ought to know.

Now I suspect there are people out there that are parents and only have the ability to work two days a week. I can see how they would have a need for EI if their part-time position was lost. Or maybe someone who works part-time but whose spouse lost his or her job and that part-time job is essential to them.

But on the surface it seems to me that most people who are working a part-time job two days a week, however dependent they may be on that income, are less likely to be as dependent on it as someone who is working a full-time job. So if there supposedly isn't enough EI to go around to everybody and we have to have this complicated system in place of shifting economic regions to determine who needs it most, shouldn't we assume that people who are losing full-time jobs are more in need of EI than people who are losing part-time jobs, regardless of their economic regions?

I think Diane Finley's statement is one that could be explored by say, two political parties determined to hold the government account to on its handling of EI. Now there's a quote I would like to see resurface in the media and the House of Commons.

A Little Justification, Please

2009-04-21T12:22:00.000-07:00

It is being suggested that it's OK to let Chrysler swing because "some other" entity will pick up their plants and employees and produce cars to fill Chrysler's hole in the market.

Before I'm willing to believe this, or willing to listen to anyone argue for or against this point, I would like someone, be it in the media or a political party, find someone who's willing to do that or at least assemble a "panel of experts" on the industry who could at least attempt to forecast whether that would be likely or unlikely to happen.

I haven't seen the likelihood or unlikelihood of this discussed anywhere in the mainstream media and right now I think large sectors of the public are operating on the assumption that if the companies shut down then they shut down and it's no big deal because someone else will come along and almost immediately start the plants again. That seems like fuzzy logic to me and I don't see any clarification coming from the big news organizations to show whether that would really happen in the case that Chrysler for example went out of business entirely in the long run.

I know companies don't want to announce those kind of intentions or talk about hypothetical situations and that doing so may affect the outcome of these situations.

This is all a bit too theoretical, considering the potential results.

I want to know: would or would not specific organizations want to take over the plants and production of car companies in Ontario that fail altogether? Who can come up with an answer or at least a reasonable forecast?

Where Are They Now?...

2009-04-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Here's two moments everyone should be making a point to remember:

From Impolitical.

I Stand Corrected

2009-04-20T20:38:00.000-07:00

Strike one.

Strike two.

Looks like I was totally wrong about the NDP's moralistic stance on defeating the government and their understanding that not doing so would would turn them into the very villain their ideological base had to come to seek out and disdain with the party's help.

I have thought for some time that Jack's main calculations are electoral and never really figured out whether he knew that was what he was doing or not but nothing proves that it's in the front of his mind like this reversal.

Well he certainly did bring change to the NDP, I'll give him that.

I think some people are going to have a hard time eating their words for the next little while. Or maybe now that the NDP has what they would call a "coalition" with the Conservatives, they'll take a page out of the Tory handbook and just deny that they ever said anything about the immorality of supporting the Conservative government or that the Liberals and the Conservatives are the same and the Liberals are so bad for supporting/abeting/providing shelter to or whatever you want to call it that the NDP accuses the Liberals of doing to the Conservatives.

Too bad NDP voters tend to be readers and aren't likely to be fooled by that kind of spin from their party leaders.

Did you ever think you'd see the day where Jack! by his own logic would argue himself into a corner where he has turned the NDP into "the same as" the Conservatives?

I wonder how this will fly with the caucus. I can't wait for the next round of Tory illicit recordings of their phone calls to find out if there's a revolt from within the ranks of the party's members.

"Jack!", I hereby change your name to "Jack?".

Slimy

2009-04-19T15:51:00.000-07:00

I find Thomas Mulcair very slippery and gross.

Jack Layton has given me the willies for some time but Mulcair makes Layton look like someone I'd invite over for dinner.

Publish Post

Irritating Rhetoric

2009-04-17T20:03:00.000-07:00

Tom Flanagan's piece in The Globe and Mail today is nothing, if not boring.

It doesn't make me mad. It doesn't make me want to argue it. It's just boring.

I know the Conservatives have a hard time understanding Parliamentary procedure, especially when it comes to coalitions, so let me point out that the opposition parties voting non-confidence to force an election is not a coalition.

A coalition is when more than one party come together to take power. That would happen after an election, or in lieu of an election if the government falls.

A vote of non-confidence is just that: a vote of non-confidence. No coalition implied or even required.

This is some pretty desperate language.

"If the opposition triggers an election it's a coalition. And you know what we think about coalitions!"

Roll eyes, turn page.

Expect this to be repeated ad nauseum for a year or more. Any excuse to mention the coalition will be contorted to use the word, whether it's justified or not.

And since when is the NDP not looking for an excuse to defeat the Conservatives? It's their call to arms. After all this time attacking the Liberals for not defeating the Conservatives and saying that they don't care what the issues are they'll vote non-confidence on anything, of course the NDP has to deliver. They're going to go back on that now and say it's OK to keep the government going suddenly after all the effort they've put into accusing people of doing just that?

And since when does the Bloc need an excuse to vote against the Conservatives? These two parties have spent so much time trying to accuse the Liberals of being Conservatives by supporting government motions that there is no way they can be seen voting to preserve the government even if they want to and they do not want to.

Interesting to know that the Conservatives only take electoral opportunism into account when deciding election timing and don't care about other issues, that's probably why they're overlooking the obvious factors influencing the party and projecting those calculations onto them.

This is nothing more than a lame attempt to try to put the idea of the coalition onto the opposition parties by making it look like it still exists when it very publicly and definitively is known to not. This will obviously be a plank in the upcoming Conservative PR strategy so take note, they're going to be talking about it again and again.

This is just the start of a lot of fast-talking that doesn't make any sense.

Enjoy it.

Quick Turnaround

2009-04-14T20:33:00.000-07:00

Check this one out from The Liberal Bag.

You know You Love Her, XOXO

2009-04-10T12:13:00.001-07:00

Another flash from GritGirl

Ce message suivra en francais

2009-04-10T12:08:00.000-07:00

Thanks to GritGril, from the nation's bilingual, separatist, socialist capital!

Morality Heading South

2009-04-08T21:19:00.000-07:00

According to Stephen Harper, Michael Ignatieff does not have a moral compass.

Harper has one of course but his only only points west, with its ass facing the East.

This is not a message for Canadians; this is a message for Conservatives. Stephen Harper has a lot of explaining to do about the Mulroney issue and the split in the party it's caused and he knows he can rally Conservatives around the idea of "we're better then Michael Ignatieff". Nevermind that that's not a true idea.

The explanation for all of this is ridiculous. It actually doesn't really make that much sense either, it's kind of a jumble of talking points that don't manage to ever form a full thought.

Saying that Ignatieff wanted to send Mulroney to prison without a trial is ridiculous. I don't remember anything of the kind. I also don't remember Harper waiting for the Gomery inquiry to complete its findings before finding the Martin government guilty of embezzlement from the top down. Nope, Harper wanted an election and he wanted to use the testimony in the inquiry that ran in his favour before the findings of the commission were released.

I think that's a lot more like sending someone to prison without a trial. In fact, that's a direct action that shows that behaviour outright. I don't think Harper can say that Michael Ignatieff has done anything of the kind.

I think Stephen Harper needs to realign his moral memory.

Harold And Kumar Go To Washington

2009-04-07T19:34:00.000-07:00

Kal Penn of the Harold and Kumar movies has been selected for a post at the White House as an arts liaison.

I know much has been made about the role of celebrity in the Obama campaign and administration and I'm sure this will raise a few peoples' ire as well.

But I must hand it to the Obama administration once again.

People and government are out of touch. To restore the balance of democracy that has to be undone.

How can a no-name candidate come from nowhere with little political profile and become one the most beloved US Presidents in recent memory? Ask YouTube.

Understanding current American culture and modernizing to reflect it is part of the genius of Barack Obama. The Queen may never use the iPod Obama gave her but more than a few kids probably chuckled at the irreverant hilarity of giving that old lady an iPod to listen to the Ting Tings on.

While this artistic liaison role may not be key to any government, let's ask ourselves how many of members of the Cabinet or any other appointee of any other kind most young people in America can name. How many do you think know the name of Hillary Clinton's actual job?

This appointment may have been made mostly for headlines. But they are headlines that if nothing else will hopefully get the attention of American youth, however fleetingly.

Is that in end in itself?

As long as there's nothing actually wrong with the appointment and Penn is seen to be doing a find job in the role, I say it is. The attitude people (especially younger generations) take toward the idea of government is killing off democracy and has to be radically revised so that it can be seen to be something that at the very least enters the field of their consciousness, something it does not do now.

Government is something young people don't even think about these days. Obama's raised their interest, but for how long and in how much detail?

This sort of re-branding of the White House is a small step but vital.

Let them mock all they like but each one of these little baby steps are going in the right direction, something no stuffed suit was ever going to be able to do.

I'm Sorry, What?...

2009-04-07T19:09:00.000-07:00

OK, the controversial Afghan law relating to family law seems to have taken everyone by surprise, including the Canadian government.

I'll give them the surprise angle. For days after and still today there seems to be confusion in all quarters about where this law came from, if it's passed or a proposal and whatnot.

But I found it interesting to note that the Minister of Foreign Affairs only found out about it through the media.

Here's what he says on CBC's Politics Monday, April 6 2009: "... you know, the first opportunity I had to find this out came through the media, indeed and I found this out late on Tuesday afternoon of last week..."

I'll agree that no one seemed to know anything about this until Tuesday of last week. I myself watched Dawn Black raise the issue in Question Period and wondered what she was talking about and much confusion followed.

Now I suppose most people don't watch Question Period and therefore found out about it in the media, probably late in the afternoon or evening on Tuesday. But most people aren't members of the House of Commons.

This is a major issue. And the Minister of Foreign Affairs found out about it, not through his party, who were asked the Question blatantly and directly in Question Period on Tuesday, not by one of his staff, at least one of whom you would think would have his or her eye on Question Period or at least ask someone what happened in Question Period to find out if there had been say... any scandals relating to Foreign Affairs they might like to know about, but via the media?

I'm surprised the NDP didn't play the government's surprise up more. The NDP had a real moment here where they succeeded for once in bringing up a major, shocking issue that the public tuned into right away and they scooped the government on it.

I still haven't heard any explanation as to how this slipped by without the government finding out about it. I think I'd like to know how that happened.

If something as major as this can go unnoticed (even if the stealth was deliberate) what else is happening under the radar in Afghanistan?

Famous last words

2009-04-06T20:28:00.000-07:00

What else needs to be said?

Maybe They'll Send A Strongly Worded Letter

2009-03-31T18:53:00.000-07:00

The NDP brought up in Question Period today an issue of laws restricting the rights of women in Afghanistan.

When asked, Stockwell Day got up and gave an Elmer Fudd-like response about how if there's anything to the accusation that the Afghani government was trying to make rape legal between married couples, remove women's custody rights over their children and prevent women from leaving the house without their husband's permission that the government would have a problem with that.

I must admit this was the first I ever heard about this issue.

It seemed to me from Stockwell Day's awkward/neither-confirm-nor-deny response that it was also the first he had ever heard of it.

Tonight it has been reported that the government has decided to look into it.

Does anyone know the timeline of this?

Did the NDP scoop the government on this one or did Stockwell Day's lame answer just make it look that way?

I'm glad this issue is being raised. But I must ask why we're on the subject of violent crime and human rights abuses in Afghanistan no one ever seems to mention something called "Man Love Thursdays".

I heard about this from someone who knows someone. I know, I know, I know...

So my friend knows someone in the army who mentioned it and I thought it sounded ridiculous. Allegedly everyone in the military knows that on Thursday night it is common practice for Afghani men to engage in sex acts with each other. I guess that's their business but the allegations go so far as to mention prostitution and the rape of minors. They also say that the military has been told not to interfere in those situations involving minors or to bring it up publicly for fear of getting into an awkward situation and to not look like the West is dictating to the Afghani government.

It sounds crazy but I Googled it and found many references to it, including in The National Post and The Ottawa Citizen. The citizen article is even linked to in a National Defense website that has defense-related headlines.

There is no shortage of references to the issue if you run the simplest Google search for it.

So that's two pretty big human rights issues flying under the radar.

I'm not sure I know what should be done with that situation but I find it strange that so something so shocking, that is alleged to be known about by lots of people, doesn't seem to be known about by the public at large, even if to deny it.

What else is going on in Afghanistan that the government doesn't deem fit for public knowledge?

Peer Counseling

2009-03-31T13:11:00.000-07:00

The House of Commons is trying to sort out its differences and stop all the name-calling.

When will someone address the other issue in the House: people don't answer the questions. Reigning in the name-calling is all well and good but when will someone find a way to prevent the endless cycle of asking a question of a minister, and then having the minister stand up and just talk about anything they want and not addressing the question.

If the Speaker can't or won't do anything about this someone should find a way to make this more public so that people can see what their MP's are up to and what it is they're paying them for and what "accountability" and "transparency" mean to the current government since they ran on that.

It's All Just A Little Bit of History Repeating

2009-03-31T13:06:00.000-07:00

Here is a GritGirl video I can champion.

With Mulroney back in the news let everyone take note that fifteen years after leaving office his scandalous ways are still haunting us. How long do you think Harper's ghost will last once he's gone?

How Can I Say No?

2009-03-25T19:43:00.000-07:00

Well I received am e-mail informing me that there is a new GritGirl video so how can I resist posting it?

I find this one a bit soft, although I love the goose voice.

It reminds me a bit of the talking grease spot. Although I like the idea of pointing out the disrespect to a national symbol... I think that would have been a better focus.

This geese issue is hilarious and underlines the ridiculousness of some Conservative parties who shall remain nameless but it's not for real... not in the way the previous videos mentioned job losses and a lack of understanding of the economic situation.

Still you must admit it's pretty cute.

Everything But The Kitchen Table

2009-03-24T21:33:00.000-07:00

An open comment to anyone speaking on behalf of the Liberal Party in the media:

Stop using the words "on probation".

I'm a Liberal voter and even I have taken to rolling my eyes when I hear this.

It's done.

You sound like the NDP saying "kitchen table". I know you know how annoying that is so stop it.

Correction

2009-03-24T21:28:00.000-07:00

Pardon me, it is actually as of 12:30 AM today right on the Monster.ca home page.

Here's an inquiry for question period if anyone needs something to say: How much is it costing the Government of Canada to advertise what a good job it's doing to the unemployed on Monster.ca? This is not a link to a website for EI, it's a link to the website about how great the economic action plan is.

Marketing Spree

2009-03-24T21:17:00.000-07:00

Today I received my Monster.ca e-mail of current job postings that I still get since signing up for Monster.ca a year ago.

At the top of the listings is an advertisement with the government logo advertising extended EI benefits. When you click on it, it takes you to the now-familiar action plan website, full of ads about all the wonderful things the government is doing to help the unemployed and no actual information on how to register for EI.

If this is on Monster.ca and being e-mailed to who knows how many people, how much is this costing?

And here's a question... instead of paying to have Monster.ca link people away from their job search sites and onto the EI announcement webpage, shouldn't the government see the opportunity to have Monster.ca pay them to link unemployed people to Monster.ca?

I know that people on Monster.ca are probably going to be interested in EI and as an audience it makes sense... but didn't the Conservatives say they were worried about people using EI as a substitute for getting a job? And now they're advertising EI to people looking for work?

Sponsorship Scandal?...

2009-03-22T18:23:00.000-07:00

I must agree with this assessment from Maxwell's House.

These TV ads have been driving me crazy. If you follow the link to the actual "government" site you can witness some of the ads if you haven't managed to see them already.

Now I can understand that the point of some of these tax cuts is to get people to take advantage of them and create some business for certain sectors and that advertising them helps that happen but the ads have always bothered me in the sense that they manage to drop in things that make them sound like campaign ads.

Now if you follow the site to the "ads" link you eventually come to the radio ads announcing the plans to improve the manufacturing and auto industries and I ask you why does the government need to advertise that? How is playing those ads on the radio advancing the economic plan or doing anything but playing a campaign ad for the Conservative Party?

I hope Elections Canada lives long enough to take a look into that one.

Everyone Else Is Doing It

2009-03-10T21:46:00.001-07:00

Having been home from work today I had to watch Jim Flaherty's and Stephen Harper's crap all day. And I yelled at my TV. And I finger-pointed at my TV. And I smacked objects up against my TV. And I swore at my TV. And I used the words like "&(*I#$$ liar!" at my TV.

A more constructive use of my time would have been to do something like this.

Big thanks to theGritGirl. Let's get this video seen as many times as possible.

Just What We've Been Waiting For

2009-02-12T17:20:00.000-08:00

Hahahhahahahahahahahahahahahahhaha.

Oh... it hurts.

Hahaha.

I'm sorry. It's just that I didn't know that we were so ahead of our time on environmental policy and that the Bush Administration had been holding us back.

Seriously though, I'm glad that the Conservatives finally got a President in America as advanced and progressive as they are so they can finally enact the secret, ambitious climate change policy they've been keeping quiet all this time.

I can't wait for Obama to release his environmental policy so that Stephen Harper can once again pretend to be putting together a plan while he waits to see what Obama's doing, copy that and then pretend to be a revolutionary and action-taker just like Obama.

Just Me?...

2009-02-10T20:09:00.000-08:00

Did anyone else think Stephen Harper seemed a bit tired and worn out during Question Period today?

Lowering The Bar

2009-02-05T21:38:00.001-08:00

Well surprise, the Conservative environmental plan isn't turning out as expected.

If you've been waiting on the edge of your seat to see the evidence of how the party's climate change policies are reducing carbon emissions you're gonna be disappointed because they can't be measured.

Especially mentioned is the non-effectiveness of the transit tax credit plan.

As a transit rider, I could have told you that. If you want see the evidence of how much real money that tax break is worth to you as a transit rider you'll be disappointed again because as someone who's received it and tried detecting it let me tell you that also can't be measured.

Don't get me wrong, if someone offers me a tax break I'll take it. I mean the money I save from that transit tax break each year almost pays for me to buy a fancier bus pass holder than the flimsy plastic ones that come with your pass for free. It doesn't quite pay for all of it but every little bit helps right?

The thing about system-wide non-noticeable tax breaks is just that: they're unnoticeable. There is nothing in that tax break that makes it worthwhile for a non-transit user to switch to transit. For the money you save there is no balance to be had with the hassle that drivers perceive themselves to be taking on when they switch to transit. It's not worth it. They'll pay the money and take their cars.

The only people getting these tax breaks are people who were already using transit. And we're happy to have it. But as a program to get people to use transit who already don't want to, it's absolutely senseless.

This idea, like many neo-conservative theories puts a lot of faith in financial models. The model says tax breaks influence behavior. They don't put any more thought into it than that.

The idea that the amount being offered is not anywhere near an incentive for people to want to switch to transit doesn't occur to them. The model says tax breaks are good and the way to achieve anything and everything. We have X number of dollars so distribute that throughout the model. We don't think about the $600-odd million dollars it's costing and how that breaks down as a dollar-benefit to each person receiving the tax break and we also don't think about the cost of the results, currently estimated to be as much as $6000 per tonne of carbon reduced since the program started (depending who you ask).

According to Jim Prentice the decisions were made based on the best information available at the time.

Things must have changed extremely quickly because according to CBC it only took them a year to reduce the estimate by 84%. That's quite a turnaround. I wonder what changed to completely alter the facts in a year to make such a big difference. Or maybe it just never made any sense.

And yet the Conservatives continue to pursue senseless, worthless, expensive tax cuts with a certain zeal, I suppose because they seem to think there's a certain morality to tax cuts and a certain immorality to paying taxes.

The best part of this is what it means once again to the Conservative base.

These proposals were launched on the idea that the other parties' plans weren't goal-oriented enough of terms of real statistics and of course, that they weren't as efficient a use of money as the Conservative plan. Well, it turns out that the Conservatives have spent a huge amount of public money in the most inefficient way anyone could imagine. Congratulations.

So no results achieved, no accountability, no efficiency.

If I can quote Jack Layton on the issue: "Unfortunately, that's what we've come to expect from this government." This is economics even Jack can understand.

Look alive, Stephen Harper.

Mr Speaker We've Had Quite A Week

2009-02-05T21:24:00.000-08:00

Congratulations on a good play to Michael Ignatieff and Gerard Kennedy and especially Kennedy for making the news.

It has been quite a week for the Conservatives.

The budget projections panned from within the country and by the IMF, threatening to legislate an end to the Ottawa Transit strike after a week earlier threatening to do nothing, the leak of a nuclear plant into the Ottawa River and the denial that there's anything wrong with that, legal allegations against Bill Casey, the revelation that the Environmental spending is impossible to account for or measure and Mike Duffy's male bonding with Danny Williams.

To keep this excited pace going they'll have to reveal on Friday that one of the Cabinet Ministers is really Kim Campbell in disguise and make us wait until Monday to find out which one it is!

No wonder they haven't had time in the last three years to get around to the whole accountability and transparency thing, they're too busy with all their side dramas.

Regrettable Association

2009-02-05T21:15:00.000-08:00

I'm glad the buses in Ottawa started running again just in time for CTV to throw Mike Duffy under one.

I was very excited to see that in their coverage of the Mike Duffy drama today CTV NewsNet referred to Duffy as a long-time journalist with no association to CTV mentioned.

That little association took no time at all to get wiped out.

It Came Out Wrong...

2009-02-05T21:02:00.000-08:00

Who says the Tories are homophobic?

Why, barely a minute into his position as Senator, Conservative appointee Mike Duffy can't wait to use his voice in the Chamber to talk about anal sex.

This is very brave of Duffy.

Braver still is his clearly fundamental belief that there is nothing wrong with the mention of man-on-man action in the Senate, since he has refused to apologize for his remarks or bow to pressure to agree that they were inappropriate.

I never knew he was such a gay rights supporter!

Since Mike Duffy is so comfortable with the suitableness of this line of comparison I know he will not mind me congratulating him and going further by pointing out that his blind lustful devotion to the Conservative Party is also not unlike getting in bed with Stephen Harper.

We don't have to ask who's on top because it is clear to all that Duffy simply doesn't have the stamina.

Stepping In It

2009-02-05T20:50:00.000-08:00

I know you'll want to check this out from A BCer In Toronto.

At Least They're Listening

2009-02-03T16:02:00.000-08:00

Now that Jack Layton has returned to the sidelines it seems he is completely willing to do anything to get noticed.

It wasn't very long ago that we were hearing that Jim Flaherty's economic plans were not in tune with reality and he had no credibility or understanding of the situation the country was in. With some help he managed to almost pull it together... on a half-hearted, probationary basis, of course.

But now Jack is defying the experts with his wizardry of economics.

It seems that Jack, now that he's been once again made irrelevant is willing to say something stupid just to get on camera.

Yes, the NDP is now espousing giving up on trying to solve the "Made In America" clause crisis and just go right ahead and start the global protectionism now. Why wait? We can shut down our trade relationships today!

Nevermind that history has shown that in times of economic crisis this is exactly the wrong thing to do.

There are arguments to be made for and against the economics of globalization and free trade but the fact is in this day and age we are too intertwined with the global economy to suddenly shut down the policy. That's a major shake-up of the way the Canadian economy interacts with the world.

In the middle of a crisis is not the moment to a) suddenly change the way political parties are financed b) alter our stance on free trade.

This is an argument to be had after an economic recovery (if such a thing ever happens... ha ha...)

It seems Jack believes in the Shock Doctrine after all.

Word of advice, Jack: if you want to get in the media during a slow week, try shaving your mustache.

I'm gonna sue you!

2009-02-03T15:32:00.000-08:00

Seems the Conservative Party can't stop throwing law suits against people.

Today it was revealed that former Nova Scotia Conservative (now independent) MP, Bill Casey had an investigation launched against him by as yet unknown members of the Conservative Party.

Since the names of the complainants are obscured on a document passed to Casey by a journalist, it is unclear whether the national party or someone in Casey's riding and former Conservative Riding Association brought the charge to the RCMP.

It seems the investigation did not lead anywhere and was abandoned.

Casey theorizes the notion stems from the transfer of $30 000 from his riding association's account to a separate election fund account, which was later transferred back to the riding association's account when Casey became an independent member.

In short, and without knowing all the details yet, it seems the charges were always groundless.

This wouldn't be the first time the Conservatives tried to get litigious on someone's ass. A slander suit was launched against a Liberal MP in the previous session (I mean before the election, not the previous session that only lasted half an hour) that meant he could no longer talk about the Chuck Cadman affair in the House of Commons until the case was over.

What a coincidence.

And now we find out that a Conservative MP broke ranks with the party and what did they do? Scurry off to the RCMP even though they couldn't come up with a charge that could stick. Best of all, Bill Casey just found out about it recently because someone else filled him in. He didn't even know about it at the time.

Does anyone else smell remnants of the Alberto Gonzales-Bush politics of attack here? Sue and press charges against your political opponents while you have influence in the government and not worry about the moral or democratic consequences?

I don't know when this investigation is supposed to have been launched but coming to light as the Conservatives are desperately trying to show just how hard they're trying to make Parliament work and be friendly and really big people couldn't be better.

Another grand maneuver on the part of the Conservative Party. And congratulations for having it spring up in the one week where the press is actually looking for partisan scandals.

Supporting Documents

2009-02-02T19:51:00.000-08:00

From Rick Mercer.

With thanks to Cameron Holmstrom.

Thank You Note

2009-01-31T12:18:00.000-08:00

Thanks to everyone for taking part in my first-ever blogosphere controversy! :)

Debate

2009-01-31T11:44:00.000-08:00

Well people had some strong feelings about my previous entry.

I feel that many of the comments I received reflected my own frustrations.

I would encourage you to read them.

Just to be clear, I am going to elevate my response to those comments right to the front page as I don't want my previous comments to be misinterpreted. Although I will say that they are in fact cynical and I am sorry that this country has come to this cynical point. But in the face of that problem, it's not the time to pretend that things are the way they always were. Running from our problems has never and will not now help us to understand or to solve them:

Thank you for your comments.

Anonymous: I am truly sorry that there is nothing the Liberal or NDP Party can do to help you. It is true that the real issues are the budget are what should count and what should be pursued to end of this clown show. I deeply regret that they won't be.

Greg: It is pessimistic. I live in the nation's capital, where most of my neighbors are the people who implement these policies and it is shameful to me that none of them understand or care about any of this. I'll agree. I hate that this is another case where the Liberals are backing up Harper. But defeating the government means a certain defeat for the opposition and a return to a conservative government, possibly a majority. Talk radio and CNN have done their work. People think this issue is about a lust for power, not about issues. If they even understand the issues, which as someone living in the city that operates the government itself I know very well that they do not. If people on the streets of Ottawa don't take the time to understand them even as they work on them, how can anyone anywhere else?

1 Anxious Liberal: I'm pretty worried about this. But I think considering how much support of mainstream Liberal voters the party has bled to the NDP I don't think we're at any greater risk than before. These mainstream centre-ish voters are more likely in my opinion to see that Michael Ignatieff has not destabilized the government by voting against the government and to realize that he has had an effect on Harper and made him enact an at least partially leftist budget. Jack Layton has no claim to that. So I'd say on the technicalities we'll probably fare better against kind of argument this time than the last time. The last time it was out of weakness, this time it's perceived to be because of the ability to get results. Stephane Dion was seen to be running from Harper when he should have been fighting. Ignatieff is sticking him with his own sword. It's risky but we can't lose any more to Jack than we already have and I think those that we have lost are the type to think "the stability of the government in a time of crisis" and "the parties working together and compromising" are the most important thing and I think Jack is backing the wrong horse by saying Ignatieff pulled the plug. He's espousing the same position that the polls flatly rejected in December. And that's fine for the NDP base but hopefully it won't cut it with the Liberal voters he picked up the last time.

Anonymous 2: pretending that people are really upstanding and studying their responsibilities in this time is just a lie. You and I follow them. Most people do not. The Liberal and NDP failure to understand this is what has been causing our parties to lose. The Conservatives understanding of this and willingness to manipulate it is what allows them to win. Making plans with our heads in the clouds will allow them to continue winning and refer to our parties as representing "unicorns and rainbows", which incidentally, they currently do represent.

Stephen 2: No contempt for democracy implied. I was all for the coalition. Sadly it was clear that it was going to lead us nowhere but to a shut out and a Conservative electoral victory AGAIN. But as the Conservatives like to remind people, they elected enough of their party to make them the government.

Ultimately it is the fault of the people for electing them. Let them reap the rewards.

People listened to Stephen Harper tell lie after lie through the whole election and were unable to tell a lie from the truth when they heard it.

It is no one's responsibility to sit each voter down and explain to them the lie and the truth of each situation. That is the responsibility of each and every one of us to bring to democracy on our own. The coalition tried to say to people that they had elected the wrong government and that the coalition knew better and would replace them. The coalition even had the demonstrable evidence to prove it. And the polls showed overwhelmingly that people hated them for it and wanted the government they elected, even in the face of the Economic Update, which was widely panned as being actually fraudulent.

The people most likely to be hurt by the recession voted to return Jim Flaherty to Parliament! Does that make any sense to you? It doesn't to me. I'm certain some of the people who will be left out in the cold by the recession probably voted Conservative.

Democracy means it's not a simple matter for you or I or our parties to eliminate what is actually the democratically elected government and replace it with our own because we think we know better than everyone else, even if we do know better than everyone else. It is possible and it is our right but it is not simple. To my mind, the coalition had the mandate and the duty to replace the government after the Economic Update. I think the opposition still has it. Before this amendment was proposed (and even for a day or so afterward) I had my fingers crossed that they would do it anyway. But Michael Ignatieff seems to be the only one who realized the reality that that is the way to ensure the future governance of the Conservative Party. The coalition steps in, erases everything that's bad about the current budget and the Conservatives dodge a bullet: they never had to let the poor and unemployed rot, as was their cruel and dastardly intention. Then the projections that allow the government to pretend there will be no more deficit in five years do not come true because they are false predictions. So we have a Liberal or a coalition government posting huge deficits into the future and the Tories blame the deficits on opening up EI. And the Liberals are suddenly "Bad fiscal managers" even though it is the Tory projections that are the culprit and the Liberals are brilliant fiscal managers. We're out forever and they're in. And they're in with a majority.

And what will happen to the poor and unemployed then?

Let the people have what they voted for according to their own will: The poor in the street and the rich renovating their homes with the money that should have gone to the poor.

That is Canada in the 21st century. We have to stop it before it becomes institutionalized. We can't stop it because it sounds so outrageous people on the street think it's a conspiracy or an exaggeration and they don't believe it.

It's not a conspiracy theory, it's a Conservative theory.

I'm sorry that it's come to this.

You better believe that it's cynical.

That's exactly what it is.

Let's cross our fingers that it won't be long before people see what this government has created and demand immediate action. Hopefully it won't be long.

We'll have our election then and those who are content to let whole communities go out of work while they sit on their new government-sponsored decks will have nowhere to hide and no lies left to tell. They'll be gone and they'll be gone permanently.

The Amendment

2009-01-30T21:51:00.000-08:00

My response to Woman at Mile 0's post. I think her point reflects a lot of our frustrations:

I share these concerns. The main reason I support the move to support the budget is that to do defeat the government now will ensure the continuance of Conservative rule and allow situations like this to continue. The reason that would happen is the general ignorance of the public.

People like us or like your daughter and in fact the Opposition parties themselves make the mistake of assuming that everyone keeps up on these issues and details and understands and weighs the facts and consequences before making an informed decision.

This belief is false.

Most people only know the headlines, if they know them at all. To people on the ground that do not follow these issues as closely as you or I there is a "stimulus" and therefore this is an Obama budget. They are relieved because our government is doing what CNN recommends. Trying to explain to them that this is nothing like that and that there all kinds of booby traps in the budget does not reach them because they do not care to know any more and they do not listen when you try to explain it. Believe me I have tried explaining it until I'm blue in the face.

The only thing more dangerous than someone who doesn't know anything about current events is someone who doesn't know anything about current events but thinks they do. And that describes most voters.

People didn't understand the coalition. They thought it was illegal or at least undemocratic. They didn't react when Stephen Harper stood in the House of Commons and referred to its members using words like "blasphemy". They didn't react when the Conservatives proudly announced that they had listened in on and recorded the telephone conversations of another party. We live in an ignorant society that thinks it knows everything.

If there were an election right now, our cause would be lost and this kind of self-congratulatory corporate and partisan self-congratulation would continue and the poor and laid-off people in this country would finally be shut out to the sounds of a Conservative majority government slamming the door in their faces. That is all I can think about when I hear Jack Layton's whining.

Michael Ignatieff has in this action drawn some major blood from the two opponents who have been beating the Liberal Party to death for over a year: Jack Layton and Stephen Harper. Those two are now reduced to attacking each other instead of the Liberals and with the budget and now with the amendment the Conservative Party's will has been broken, if only temporarily.

Stephen Harper's iron grip on the government and the PMO's stranglehold on democracy must be eliminated. Immediately.

This has gone way beyond progressive or regressive policies or amendments to help particular demographics in a specific bill. If the proposed amendment had been to open up EI the Conservatives would have said "We can't do that, we'll run ourselves into a higher deficit. These Liberals always want to spend, spend, spend. Why should "regular Canadians" pay for the poor?" It would have played and that would have been that. More than likely the Conservatives wanted Michael Ignatieff to propose just that so they could increase the EI numbers at great expense and then have someone to blame. But instead everyone knows how the Conservative Party feels about regular people who are out of work because of the recession. They know their attitudes toward the poor and the unemployed, a demographic that is about to balloon. They will never be able to tell the lie again that they care about working families or every day canadians.

They gave the finger to all those people and the Liberals are making them wear that. If this was proposed as a change in the form of an amendment to the budget we'd be staring down an election that we would lose.

It was said when the Conservatives first took office that this is what was necessary to teach Canadians why they don't like conservatives in the first place and that things would be bad and the country would quickly rediscover its distaste for that party.

It hasn't happened.

People think they love the Conservatives. It's a minority government for sure but that's saying something nonetheless.

By making people live through the government that a huge number of citizens elected everyone will now have to learn this lesson and it's unfortunate that this is what it takes to make it happen.

This is not about the budget. It's not about the recession. Jack Layton is right about one thing: it's about confidence and about the non-trustworthiness of the Conservative Party. People haven't seen it no matter how many times it's been paraded in front of them so let them open up and swallow what they've asked for and see what it really tastes like. As is stands right now plenty of people think this budget is great because they don't know anything about it. Let them see how "great" it is.

Ignorance elected this government. Ignorance elected it the second time after all the terrible things it did the first time. Let the people have what they paid for and see what it really is.

Then and only then will that government be defeated by the citizens of this country.

No amount of reason or argument or discussions of the facts or history can make people vote against the current government.

This has gone too far beyond that.

The only way to see progressive policies in the government in the future is to do what this amendment has started to do: eliminate the Conservative Party's grasp on the public imagination. Those people need to be kicked out of office by the public and they need to stay out.

Consider where we'd be right now if the budget had been voted down. It's not a good situation. Now think about this: After years of starting up from a grass roots movement and all the disgusting little dirty tricks, the filibustering, suing MP's for slander, secret tape recordings, spreading misinformation, you name your low-down cheap move, after all the racism, the sexism, the homophobia, the classism, all the slandering of peoples' reputations, after all the money spent, after all the time and effort put into bringing a movement into a mainstream party and forming a government the Conservative Party's defining moment has finally come and it was to deliver a budget that is so repulsive to the party and the movement's grass-roots members that they don't know what to do with themselves. And one that the progressive parties literally forced them into in a moment of weakness created by their own party leaders. The party and movement faithful don't know what it was all for anymore.

And now they have to let that budget pass and they have to watch the party deliver it. And the country who elected them (in however minority of a figure) have to live with the budget they created and it may even help the economy. It may even create lots of jobs. And it will let the poor and the unemployed who have been trampled by the economy swing. It will let them all swing. And there in that broken moment, even the most ignorant will see what the Conservative Party is: unprincipled, amoral, willing to do anything to try and save its own neck in the moment, heartless, classist, incompetent and visionless.

No election campaign will make the broad base of the nation see this. They will have to let the bad decision they made in the last election do its work and learn it the hard way.

And we will have to sit by and let it happen.

And people will have to be laid off and lose their homes.

And the provinces will have to complain that they are not being treated equally.

It's a hard lesson and it's not fair that people who have already learned it have to go through all that or that what's going to happen to the underprivileged, the homeless, and the soon-to-be unemployed have to go through it.

It's cynical, it's senseless but that's the world today and Canada these days has been pulled into it along with everyone else.

So we can only take heart in the amendment by knowing that it is using the Conservatives' own dirty tricks to undo them. They are being slowly and quietly undone from within right now and sooner or later they'll be undone by the public by this.

The simple amendment not asking for a change to the government's budget but to allow it to pass and have to stand as-is on the government's opinion of what should happen now means the Conservative Party has to "wear" their actions. It also takes Liberal Party out of the dangerous electoral territory that the public is angry about right now: the notion of "trying to grab power", "bringing instability to the government", "thinking about themselves in a time of crisis". Those slanders belong to the NDP now and Jack Layton is apparently excited to post them all over himself.

Jack Layton only had one real legitimate reason for his announcing that he would vote against the budget before he even saw it: The Harper government has promised infrastructure money in the past in budgets and never spent the money so there's no reason to believe that anything the budget says will happen because even if it's good the money won't be spent.

That's a true and serious allegation. But it sounds so outrageous that it lacks the ring of truth to people who don't know that it's true... which is most people.

Michael Ignatieff's amendment solves the problem. It makes the same point by saying the government has that track record. It makes the opinion public without going down the road of "instability" or "power-stealing". It agrees with Jack Layton's point without taking the extreme action that voters do not want to see: the defeat of the government in a time of crisis and more party self-serving political bickering.

It also had another amazing effect. The amendment basically says: "I don't believe you." And the Conservatives had to agree to it.

They've indirectly admitted the point and now have to back peddle to explain why they're not actually voting for the amendment on the grounds that they've been untrustworthy in the past but for some other ridiculous reason that they've had to make up.

Jack is on the sidelines. He has no credibility on the economy. All of the bad publicity that came with the coalition has now been thrown onto him. He's on the sidelines and not able to reach the mainstream voters with his song and dance about how the Liberals are really just Conservatives, which has always been a ridiculous argument, except to people who don't know anything about the subject and can therefore believe anything if it's presented to them in a believable way. He is not currently in a position to credibly alter opinion about the budget or for the time being to hurt the reputation of the Liberal Party.

The coalition did its work: the Conservatives were backed into a corner they couldn't scream and accuse their way out of (thanks to the intervention I personally believe of the much-maligned Michaelle Jean... just my opinion). They've been forced to shoot themselves in the foot and they're in real trouble with their base and each other. They're scattered, they're panicked, they're disorganized and they're without a plan. What's more they're pushed into pretending to be nice and having to make a big show out of respecting and liking the other parties.

Not bad for one amendment and one week of Parliament sitting.

The opportunities for all of this exist only for a very small window so the Liberals have to make the most of them while they exist.

It's harsh but the moral of the story is that the Conservatives have gotten where they are because they have preyed on the public's ignorance and subsequent ability to believe anything. It seems the only way to undo that is to give people what they were so sure they wanted and let them see the truth.

This is the dilemma laziness has bought this nation.

Tell your daughter she's right about the issues. But the times have crossed a line where governments are no longer chosen on the issues. It's easy for people like us to forget that because we follow these these things so closely and consider these debates and ideas so crucial to democracy but to most people they are just "boring".

A change means winning.

And winning means letting the public learn the Tory lesson.

Day 51

2009-01-29T21:39:00.001-08:00

From Adam M Is 30.

Well today is Day 51 of the Ottawa transit strike and has it ever been special. But it's finally over.

Since well before Christmas there has been no transit and as an urban-type who doesn't drive living in the car-dependent suburbs it's been something else.

The only thing within walking distance of here is the grocery store and if you've never been through a winter in Ottawa let me tell you it's not the kind of weather you'd want to be walking in... or to be generally in.

Every day my father drives home from his office downtown all the way back out here, picks me up, drops me off at work and then goes back to work on his lunch. Then he comes to my work from the house every night and drives me back home. That is except for Thursdays when I work at 9 AM and have to hitch a ride with whomever I can, leaving at 7:15 AM to get to work by 9, a trip that usually takes eighteen minutes.

This has been going on for 51 days.

Why don't I take a cab? A cab costs $30 each way and thus $60 a day or $300 a week.

I can't go anywhere or do anything.

My plan to snap up nice stuff for cheap in January so that I'm stocked with new stuff for moving in April is totally thrown off as I have been unable to get anywhere.

Up until now they've been saying it would take up to eight weeks to restore full service once the strike ends since all the buses have been sitting unused and unmaintained for two months during the aforementioned horrible winter.

Now it seems the strike is over and they're suggesting some service could be restored in a week. Interesting.

What are the issues surrounding the strike? Everyone's forgotten. It ceased to be about issues weeks ago and has since then been only about winning and losing for both sides.

I'm glad the city could be held hostage for that important event.

It's been estimated that the strike might have cost the municipal economy millions per day over the last two months (including the holiday season). There are businesses shutting down that may not return and some hurting so bad they will eventually shut down.

This during a recession. A recession no less in which we have been told Ottawa's economy should remain ultimately stable.

No thanks to this.

I saw this snow sculpture in the paper and noticed that it was near my house so I went and checked it out.

It's right on the side of the road on a suburban street, exactly where you might expect to see people waiting for a bus.

Humpty Dumpty is waiting with them.

As a left-winger I hope that OC Transpo won't prove to be impossible to put back together again.

Rona, My Love

2009-01-29T16:54:00.001-08:00

There's a special place in my heart for Rona Ambrose.

And by special I mean... well anyway.

Last Thursday she announced that the City of Ottawa could solve it's own 40-day-old transit strike-turned-crisis. I know it was last Thursday because I take a different car pool on Thursdays (thanks to the strike) and we were wondering why she wouldn't want to be seen taking action.

What could have changed between last Thursday and this Thursday?

Oh, that's right. The action gets better media play if it's this week, after the budget instead of last week when no one gave a crap about anything but Obama and speculating what would be in the budget.

I guess this was meant to compound what was supposed to have been a great announcement by Jim Flaherty and this was supposed to have been the government's victory lap.

Oopsies.

Now it's just an excuse for the Cabinet to say "Well this week wasn't all bad" at their next meeting. If they have meetings. That's still unclear.

Oh my dear Rona, you are too clever by half. Or half as clever as you thought you were.

Insubordination

2009-01-29T16:19:00.000-08:00

My father asked me yesterday morning what the outcome was as Michael Ignatieff wrapped up his press conference, having entered the room only at the end.

"It's some kind of amendment-omnibus" I told him.

"So blackmail," he sighed.

"No," I responded. "You know the budget is being widely panned, right?"

"I saw three experts recommending it on TV last night!"

"Was that on CTV?"

"Yes."

"Well, there you go."

On the night of the budget announcement I actually saw CTV nightly news claim that Michael Ignatieff had expressed his support of the budget that day and then proceed to show a clip of Ignatieff speaking that could have been misconstrued to be declaring his support if you believed what the reporter said who introduced. This was actually the same announcement that ended with Ignatieff announcing that he would be attending two meetings that night, making a decision and announcing the decision at 11 AM the next day.

Once again the story people are hearing on the ground (ie. the headlines) and the real story are vastly different. I am interested to see that Andrew Coyne's prediction seems to be having some clout in reality.

Over the past few days the backlash from Conservatives, and in particular Albertans against the budget has been fascinating... at least in the press.

Don't forget that most people who think they're "conservatives" don't know the first thing about conservatism, neo-conservatism, economics (although they think they know everything about it) or in fact anything about the government, the news, current events or the economy at all. And they are not participating in the story of the Conservative backlash and most likely are not aware of it, nor would they understand it or relate to it if they did know about it.

I find it interesting that the fallout from the budget may not yet be electoral but political. This may be the true beginning of the formerly iron-clad support of Stephen Harper within the Conservative Party faithful starting to crumble beneath him.

Witness: The Edmonton Sun, (with thanks to dunkler) this list of quotes compiles by bcinto, Monte Solberg in The Ottawa Sun, and this lovely compilation of quotes from Warren Kinsella.

And while you're at it why not check out this hilarious little nugget from Rick Mercer, with thanks to Darryl Wolk.

So if all the damage is within the party (as it seems to be for the time being) what will that do to Stephen Harper's leadership or his ability to stay within the party's upper levels at all?

The Liberal leader fell on his sword as a result of the last session. Doesn't it seem fair that the equally guilty Conservative leader also should?

I'm sure there's no shortage of ambitious up-and-comers just waiting to tear the party apart for the leadership in the Martin-Chretien style. Let's start prodding Lawrence Cannon and Jim Prentice with a stick and see how riled up we can get them before the blood sport starts.

You know Peter MacKay's not in the running, right?

Rona Ambrose will try but let's get real.

She'll probably cross the floor if the party's name gets dragged too much through the mud. After all she thinks she still has a career to save.

And while we're at it isn't it about time for Paul Dewar to put Jack Layton out of his misery?

The Harper Government Gets A New Vibe

2009-01-28T21:34:00.002-08:00

The Harper cabinet examines fabric swatches prior to announcing a tax credit for renovations.

The Conservatory

2009-01-28T20:39:00.000-08:00

It has been suggested by Andrew Coyne in MacLean's and also on The National Conservatism is at the end of its road.

Interesting.

It seems that for some time neo-conservatism seemed prepared to sweep a world whose short memory had caused it to forget what happened in the 1980's.

These neo-cons swore that there would be endless prosperity and wealth, which according to economic models can be created without end. They believed in tradition and restraint and applauded the belief that the rich got to be that way because they're smarter than the middle-class and that we should seek their wisdom over the wisdom of history. They seemed so certain that we should put our faith in the stock market and that the idea that the free market will automatically solve all of our problems.

And then the doorbell rang and it was reality delivering the bill for all of that crap.

There was a very telling moment when George W Bush stood at a podium and admitted publicly that he was supporting a huge spending stimulus package. And the look on his face was one of hurt. He said out loud that in this measure he saw that he had to support an idea to which he was morally opposed. Government interference. Government handouts from the bottom of the consumer chain with the goal of sending that money up to the top.

The look on his face also showed that he was well and truly broken.

Is this an international phenomenon?

Consider the amount of time it has taken the Conservative Party of Canada from the debut of the Reform Party to grab the top seat in Parliament. That was a long time and a lot of fighting and ridicule. To achieve it the party had to be told (repeatedly over the years) by its current leader, Stephen Harper, that in order to achieve and then to hold power the party would have to let go major parts of its ideology.

A compromise. Fair enough.

But now after all of that time and all of that effort and all of that trouble, what is at least up until now the Conservative Party of Canada's most definitive moment as a government has been a budget that defies the party's morals in many, many ways. Similar to George W Bush it seems the party has been pushed into a corner where the only way out is to follow an approach that is immoral in the party's view point.

When years of global neo-conservatism came to its highly-predictable catastrophic result, it turned out that neo-conservatism had nothing to offer in the way of a solution.

The party's ego was smashed by the coalition (whether you support the coalition or not I think anyone can see that it had this effect) and the party's will was subjugated to that of the other parties.

If electability is momentum, who has the momentum now?

Is the neo-conservative government model is (despite what its followers claim) an authoritarian, strong, results-achieving model who is strong and acts with authority now?

If restraint is of the economic essence and tax cuts a certain way to increase government revenue where is that restraint and that revenue now?

If the Conservative Party believes it can win elections and support based on perception and character what will happen now that it has been chastised, bullied and made to go against all of its ideals in an extreme manner at the command of the other parties?

These conditions will only last in the public perception for a short time. So the real question is what can the opposition parties do in this brief window to make sure that people really and truly understand what's happened to the government and so they don't forget six months from now?

Is This What I Ordered?

2009-01-27T15:46:00.000-08:00

The budget has dropped.

It should be an interesting one. The initial reactions at 4 to a mere hour later were on a real trajectory downhill.

Seems like the budget looked good on the menu but it didn't go down too well once people started chewing it.

I can't wait to see what happens tomorrow at 11 AM... although I feel it's probably an obvious pass.

My Dear, Sweet Bastard

2009-01-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

George Bush can't get a break from those elites.

Today when asked if his actions had injured the reputation of America in the world he replied that it was only amongst the elites.

What does that mean? Who are these elites? The G-7? Shouldn't that be a worry?

Or does he mean amongst particular people? Is that to imply that 70% of Americans who disagree with Bush are elites?

Bush also worried on Barack Obama's behalf that the first big problem Obama will face is another attack on the US.

Somehow I think if within the early days in office Obama were to learn of a specific and impending attack on the US he might do something about it besides go on vacation or ignore the warning.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to drag Condoleeza into this.

Sharp Turnaround

2008-12-18T20:49:00.000-08:00

Is anyone else a little disappointed (but not surprised) that Jim Flaherty just found out there's going to be a deficit?

It seems every analyst and economist and everyone with the will to turn on a television and tune in literally any channel, including YTV knew there was going to be a deficit.

The Parliamentary Budgetary Officer knew it on November 20. He even came pretty close to predicting the number Jim Flaherty managed to finally crank out.

I'm pretty sure the 75 000 people who lost their jobs in November knew it.

In only a few short weeks, Jim Flaherty has gone from saying everything's fine because Emperor Palpatine had foreseen the coming economic crisis and taken steps to stay out of it (as Stephane Dion, for once, astutely observed: if he knew it was coming why did he eliminate the $3 Billion contingency fund?) and is now saying that we're facing a huge economic problem and everybody had better hold on tight... oh yeah, that starts next year by the way... as in two weeks from now, not some unknown time in the future based on unpredictable coming circumstances.

Fresh on the heels of the Flaherty economic revolution of turning a huge surplus into a moderate deficit and having nothing to show for it, Flaherty has done another 180 and is now suggesting on the input of the premiers that there should be an enormous stimulus package. Although just a few weeks ago he said that was not needed.

He'd like you to be aware that this was advice from the premiers, not what he was told he had to do or else by Michael Ignatieff and Stephen Harper (possibly by Michaelle Jean via Stephen Harper).

Stephen Harper used to accuse of Stephane Dion of making up his economic policies as he went along. Talk about your making it up as you go along... this may be the biggest change in policy in the shortest time a government has made in Canada since Stephen Harper campaigned against taxing income trusts and then taxed them after the previous election... or the time he said he wouldn't rest or settle out of court until the softwood lumber industry got every penny it was owed by the US and then settled out of court for very little money after the previous election or the time... well, you get the point.

The Conservatives used to accuse the Liberals of "flip flopping". Is there a bigger flip-flop than the Federal Finance Minister saying one week that everything is fine, that old GST cuts would prevent a new recession and that there was nothing to worry about to saying the next that we had better "gird" ourselves to difficult times and that there will be "significant unemployment" next year.

If... and it's a big if... Jim Flaherty takes the fall for this will any of it stick to Stephen Harper as these were ultimately his lines as well and his reputation as an economist was supposed to be his guiding force to direct the government through the economic crisis?

We will soon see...

Talking Turkey

2008-12-10T20:58:00.001-08:00

I don't really have a problem with Michael Ignatieff.

I used to really like him before he started running for Liberal Leader after having been in the party for seventeen minutes.

I don't think he's electable in the sense that he doesn't portray as likable to those who don't already like him or to those who don't put intelligence and the sincerity and philosophy of conviction at the top of their list of leadership qualities, which sadly these days seems to be most of the country.

I liked what he said on The National tonight. He may or may not go with the coalition. He'll look at the budget. Stephen Harper has a problem with truthfulness (the closest any of the big leaders has come to calling Stephen Harper a liar in public).

I did not like how he said it.

Why did he have to deliver this speech like a Cylon with a low battery?

I appreciate that he's had a long day and an interview on national TV at that time of night is going to be difficult after all that but come on... someone give the mad a Red Bull. That was his introduction to a whole lot of people who have never seen him speak at length and he looked like a marionette: a blank expression on his face when he was talking and an awkward smile and a raise of the eyebrows when he wasn't. I'm surprised his eyeballs didn't spin around in his head while he was at it.

I don't think Bob Rae would have allowed himself to appear to be that tired or demure, regardless of his day.

Fortunately he presented a little better on CTV but I didn't watch all of that one because I'm tired of CTV.

Striking At The Heart of Public Transit

2008-12-10T20:33:00.000-08:00

It has been suggested that if people knew the plight of OC Transpo employees, they would support them.

That is wrong.

The citizens of Ottawa were just handed a substantial property tax increase. During a recession. And now they're being asked to sympathize with the idea of city services costing even more?

My (admittedly vague) understanding of the final offer before the strike was that the employees were offered a raise of three percent the first year, and two percent per year the following two years. Now that may not be an amazing raise but it's pretty consistent with say, inflation. I know, I know... inflation or deflation have surpassed levels of predictability but it's in line with a reasonable expectation of inflation so at least everyone's making the same, even with inflation at two percent per year.

Not good enough?

Did I mention there's a recession?

Who's going to pay for this? The City of Ottawa, who's penny-pinching and raising taxes simultaneously? The Government of Ontario, who is now a have-not province? Do you think the federal money John Baird is so fond of bragging about but not producing is ever going to (if it materializes) go into paying more to the already existing transit systems of Ontario? Of course not, they have to show progress when they spend that money and that means new services. If it happens.

After the Federal Government tried to ban the right of public service workers to strike the OC Transpo employees should consider their right to strike a benefit and walk away with the two percent increases.

Do they know how much this strike is costing people who don't know what they're making?

It will cost me $35.00 every day to get to work that I have to take a cab, if I can actually get a cab. If I had to take a cab home (fortunately I can get a ride home), that would be $70.00 per day.

Let's say the strike goes on for two weeks, this will cost me $350.00.

Are you kidding me?

All this because the raise that was offered wasn't enough?

I work in the retail sector and I have part-time employees not showing up to work because they can't afford to take a cab. Which means they can't come to work and they're not getting paid. This has turned off the tap on their income.

Simple as that.

I haven't heard anything compelling enough to make me think all this is worth the trouble. If there were some major crisis I could see it. But I haven't seen it. If someone knows the reason that outweighs all the bad, please explain it to me.

Also I must say I think from what I've read it seems to be more about the unions than the drivers at this point. That's a funny state of things since they're supposed to be representing the drivers.

We have huge snow storms this week.

It's almost Christmas.

Traffic was out of control today. Commerce is at a halt in what's supposed to be the busiest time of the year.

What's wrong with a temporary arrangement to keep the buses moving through the holidays and taking action after if they really have to?

All this adds up to strengthening the belief that holds OC Transpo back from a real expansion: people don't think it's reliable or that it's worth it if they could drive.

All the people getting let down, or actually screwed by this strike couldn't give a care about the amount of raises OC Transpo employees are getting. If they're getting raises, the public expects them to take them and do it now so we don't have to rearrange our days, cut back our grocery bills or risk our jobs over their dispute.

Heather Mallick

2008-12-09T16:54:00.000-08:00

Here's a little article by Heather Mallick on the proroguement.

It asks a lot of questions people never bother to ask themselves.

Read it here.

Falsification of Records

2008-12-09T16:48:00.001-08:00

I did not know that there is a claim that Barack Obama is not an American citizen.

Apparently there's been a case submitted to the US Supreme Court trying to undo Barack's presidency on the basis that he is not American.

That is particularly desperate and it shows the divisive beliefs behind Obama hating.

The man was born in the US. That makes you a US citizen. Period.

And Clarence Thomas was trying to get the court to take up the case!

How desperate can someone get?

Anyway, the court declined to hear the case.

There's a new low when people try to influence the outcome of an election (and one that wasn't even stolen this time) by claiming that provable, documented facts are not true.

And for a Supreme Court Justice to be supporting the claim to be heard! Don't let anyone say that judges should be elected in Canada. Clarence Thomas is a Republican partisan. He is a big, huge, fat Republican partisan. There is no other excuse for his behavior. There is no other reason why he shouldn't have laughed this case off, but instead he's supporting it.

That's what you get when you have judges that represent political parties.

Don't be fooled. This is what it means.

Interview With The Vampire

2008-12-09T16:31:00.000-08:00

If you haven't seen Peter Mansbridge's interview with Stephen Harper yet, let me just put you at ease before you watch the rerun on The National: nothing happened.

It was your typical Stephen Harper interview.

The CBC basically gave him half an hour to say what he wanted. There were several times when he had gone so far off the question asked that Peter Mansbridge would try to cut him off and he would raise his hand and say "Let me finish".

No, there was nothing about it that made it not look rude. It looked extremely rude.

But no one cares about that these days.

The only interesting thing that happened was minor: Harper was asked directly whether he regretted any kind of opportunism he had sought in the economic statement and Harper essentially said no, while unsuccessfully trying to dodge the question.

As Mansbridge threw out issue after issue and challenge after challenge, Harper continued with his usual tricks or revisionist history, indicating that he said weeks ago there would need to be an economic stimulus, that he never entered into an arrangement where he relied on the support of the Bloc with the exchange of giving them what he calls "veto" power and oh yes, he did continue to hammer the nail of the Bloc's mission in life being to tear the country apart. I guess he's free to do that at will now that the federalist party in the Quebec election managed to still win a slight (slighter than predicted) majority after his stoking the sentiments of separatism and inexplicably making it a headline issue again after years of dormancy (it hasn't even been that big of an issue in the Quebec provincial election).

Every time Mansbridge made the challenges, tried to quote Harper's words, imply he was being dishonest or misleading Harper just kept on talking over him with his usual talking points.

This was basically a one-man national address and it's the same one Harper's been making for two weeks.

There was one moment where he pledged to give the opposition parties concessions on what they want to make Parliament run smoothly (how many times is that?) and I could've sworn Peter Mansbridge was about to say "What if what they want is your resignation and they'll support the government after you step down?". But he didn't.

Harper just talked and talked and talked until time ran out so he never got to be asked anything.

Ironically, I believe they were using the set from the election debates. What were they implying there?

I don't know why the CBC had this sudden special if they couldn't set aside an undetermined amount of time so that it could go for as long as it had to go. What's wrong with setting aside an hour and then returning to regular programming if you don't get an hour? I think that's about how long it takes to get Stephen Harper's jaw to tire of all the spin-doctoring he's doing. He only has about ten minutes of talking points. Even if he repeats each one three times (which he did, regardless of the question asked) that's only half an hour, leaving another half to explore new, unscripted territory.

Don't journalists learn after all this time that there's a specific technique to interviewing that man? Why don't they figure out what it should be and use it?

Or, use "The House Rules" from CBC Radio's The House, something that show has stopped using to its detriment. The rules were that you answer the question you're asked and if you stray or start making partisan claims or attacks or you stray from the topic and start talking about the talking point you'd rather be talking about the producer just shuts you off and you have no sound.

That's fair.

And it worked too. People had to answer the questions or lose their turn to speak and the other parties got to answer the questions without their input. Also, it prevented people from talking over each other to avoid having what the other guests or the host saying (or in today's case the questions the host was trying to ask in the interview) being heard by the audience.

It's a snooze.

Don't be surprised.

The King Is Dead, Long Live the King

2008-12-09T16:16:00.000-08:00

Apparently after a lengthy conference call a formula was devised for choosing the Liberal interim leader and the formula led Bob Rae to believe he could not win the contest.

We will not know the full details of the conference call until the Conservatives release the full illegally-taped recording of it but appearing on CBC's Politics today, Rae explained that according to the agreed-upon process it was clear that he had no shot at winning and the Liberal party had no chance at renewing its grass roots support. But he is not bitter!

So what will Hillary do now? I'm expecting to see him as deputy leader and to see him and Michael Ignatieff and Scott Brison and Gerard Kennedy and Ruby Dhalla all over my TV and all over the radios of people who listen to the radio, of which I am not one because I take myself seriously.

I do not want to see Stephane Dion on TV anymore. But I do still want to see him in the front benches in the House itself. Any less would be telling the story as one of defeat... well more than it already is a story of defeat.

I had no clear feeling on the Rae/Ignatieff split. They are both equally great and equally poor, just in different areas. If some kind of solution could have allowed them to be co-leaders where Ignatieff does all the thinking and Rae does all the acting until the likes of Brison or Dhalla is ready to move to the front that would have been my preferred option.

As is, I was ready to roll the dice either way. Now that the decision has been made I have a good feeling, but I'm at a loss to explain it.

I'll agree that there has to be a clear leader when the House of Commons meets again and that it should be clear that that person will stay on as leader after the convention to provide consistency.

I don't have a sense of where this is going.

But I do know one thing. These divisive Liberal internal politics are deadly to the party. They're what's been holding them back since 2003. If you sit your butt down in the Byward market in any bar around 7 PM you'll hear drunken assistants still to this day fighting over how this is all Chretien's fault or Martin's fault.

Those kind of small people who work for the party need to be just eliminated.

Goodbye. Just like that.

While Stephen Harper rails on the Liberal Party for things he alleges they did two leaders ago or more, the Liberals never get up and say "You're talking about something that happened five years ago. Why can't you talk about what's happening in the present?"

The reason they don't do that is because they themselves don't live in the present.

My message to the Liberals: Get over it.

There is nothing in the Liberal Party currently worth fighting over. Take a look around the office... it's no great prize. It's a fixer-upper and no one in the House nor on their staffs seem to know how to swing a hammer.

Grow up and do something mature for a change. At least that would set you apart from the Conservatives.

Politics

2008-12-06T20:00:00.000-08:00

Check out Don Newman's summary on the week's intrigues in Parliament. (Read it).

I love you, Don Newman!

Personal

2008-12-06T19:52:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's personal but I really do not like John Manley.

What's so great about him and why do I have to keep hearing quotes from him?

He's been out of the party for a long time and never made that big of a splash in the first place. Also, he's just generally annoying.

Horse Trading

2008-12-06T19:41:00.000-08:00

So now the Conservatives will spend the next six weeks trying to persuade Liberals to vote against the non-confidence motion.

How many members do you think the Conservatives will offer positions in their party and get them to cross the floor?

Will it be enough for them to create a majority?

A majority that no Canadians voted for? And will people complain then?

They should have said they would back down on the coalition if the Conservatives caved in on the budget demands and Stephen Harper resigned.

Apart from the economic issues, which are real and legitimate, I think getting rid of Stephen Harper was the main issue... not grabbing power.

There are plenty of cracks in the Conservative Party, they're just better at keeping them secret. Everyone in Ottawa knows this. With this excuse to demand Stephen Harper's resignation, those Conservatives who are against Stephen Harper would have had their moment to stand up without fear and say his resignation would be the right thing. And the Conservatives would be splintering and not the Liberals.

And this could have been solved without the madness because without the head maniac I think the House of Commons could have functioned fairly nicely for some time.

Backroom Conversations

2008-12-06T19:36:00.000-08:00

I've been thinking about the coalition and the proroguement (if you didn't know) and do you know what else bothers me about it?

The lesson the opposition learned from this is to surprise attack.

I mean strategically (and this is terrible) their main mistake was to be open and to give notice about their intentions.

If they had attacked by surprise, they would have had their vote.

That means the next time a situation like this comes up (and it will happen... it seems minority governments are to be a big part of Canada's future) the coalition at the time will have to just drop the axe unexpectedly so as to avoid a progroguement.

Does that seem right?

Philosophical Misdirection

2008-12-04T17:18:00.000-08:00

The word "mandate" doesn't mean anything.

A "mandate" is an idea. It could mean anything... like "sovereignty association". People say they have a mandate and they imagine it to be anything they like it to mean.

The constitution however is a little more formal. It may not be completely defined but it has regulations and guidelines that are real. They may be open to interpretation but they are real.

Since when does a mandate trump a constitution?

I believe that if a party is elected as the official opposition it that party's mandate to oppose the government. In a minority Parliament even more so.

This idea of a "mandate" is an invented argument. It's just sophism.

Parliament has rules.

Democracy has rules.

Majority rules.

Mandate is just a talking point. And it's getting talked in the face of law and morality way too much.

Stephen Harper has no mandate to say that the other elected parties don't have a mandate. Anyone who's elected has a mandate. That makes everyone democratically equal. No mandate can undo that.

Don't forget, Stephen Harper isn't saying he disagrees with the opposition's decision or that he doesn't like it's actions. He's going much further than that and saying that what they are doing is undemocratic, treasonous, immoral and all kinds of exaggerated, overblown, desperate words. He's claiming they have no mandate.

Why does he suddenly have a monopoly on mandates? He didn't even receive 50% of Parliament's madate.

Tricky Syntax

2008-12-04T17:17:00.000-08:00

Stephen Harper was elected with a strengthened mandate. Not a strong mandate.